🔗 Share this article Winter in Sokcho Analysis: A Moody Slow-Burn Tale of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a Korean Border City Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss 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 DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also camps in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, trapped between dual heritages. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uncomfortably between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction. 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 partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider takes up residence for a long-term stay. At first conforming to her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes 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 buried emotions erupt in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of physical constraint and liberation. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the main story, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse. Acting and Cinematic Craft The three focused performances at the centre – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral 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 drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale. The film is available on the streaming service from November 7.