🔗 Share this article

Adapted from the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) 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 spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, caught between dual heritages. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the enigmatic author, she lingers uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes prepared by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a move to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence for a long-term stay. At first matching her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to extract the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a vent – 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 bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of physical constraint and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan remains a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.

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