🔗 Share this article Winter in Sokcho Review: A Moody Slow-Burn Story of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a Korean Border City Adapted from the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire. Daily Life and Disruption If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to the capital. But this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner takes up residence for a long-term stay. At first matching her prejudices about rude French men, he turns out, on Googling him, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else. Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s profession, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse. Acting and Cinematic Craft The trio of strong acts at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale. Winter in Sokcho can be seen on the streaming service from November 7.