🔗 Share this article

Based on the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing film centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also camps in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, trapped between two cultures. After the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the enigmatic author, she lingers uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

When she’s not digging into visually stunning marine dishes prepared by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a move to Seoul. But this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. At first conforming to her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise 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 something else.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in residence.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the cautious standoff between hotelier and visitor, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.

Winter in Sokcho is available on the streaming service from 7 November.