🔗 Share this article Winter in Sokcho Analysis: A Moody Slow-Burn Story of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a Korean Frontier Town Adapted from the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s first feature also camps in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. Once the French-speaking employee is compelled to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire. Daily Life and Disruption If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about rude French men, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he manages to prise the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else. Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of secret, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan remains a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s mother and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit separate from the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence. Acting and Cinematic Craft The three focused performances at the centre – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on absence, on the verge of drown in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale. Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from 7 November.