🔗 Share this article Sokcho in Winter Analysis: A Moody Slow-Burn Tale of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a Korean Border City Inspired by a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still in utero, trapped between dual heritages. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction. Daily Life and Disruption If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. At first matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in extract 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 surrogate parent, or another figure entirely. Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of physical constraint and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a remote presence, upholding his solitary principles and sparing with details of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – 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 clearly a central idea for Kamura. Yet despite 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, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over absence, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of modern ghost story. Winter in Sokcho is available on the streaming service from 7 November.