🔗 Share this article

Adapted from the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also camps in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. Once the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes prepared by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to the capital. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. At first conforming to her biases about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he manages to extract the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with particulars of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the centre – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over absence, on the verge of drown in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.

The film can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.