🔗 Share this article

Inspired by a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing drama follows hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

If not enjoying visually stunning seafood prepared by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model aiming for a move to the capital. But this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to 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 surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on absence, threatening to drown in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

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