🔗 Share this article

Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the enigmatic author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes prepared by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to the capital. However this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her prejudices about rude French men, he proves, after an online search, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan remains a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to drown in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film can be seen on the streaming service from November 7.