🔗 Share this article

Based on a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uncomfortably between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Disruption

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. However this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. At first matching her prejudices about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he manages to prise the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.

Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of clandestine, winding moments of physical constraint and liberation. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of drown in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho can be seen on the streaming service from 7 November.