🔗 Share this article

Inspired by a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama follows hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also camps in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still in utero, trapped between dual heritages. Once the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uncomfortably between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Disruption

When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. Initially conforming to her prejudices about rude French men, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions surface in bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan remains a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s mother and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

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