🔗 Share this article Sokcho in Winter Analysis: A Moody Slow-Burning Story of Family and Closeness in a Korean Border City Inspired by a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, caught between dual heritages. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction. Daily Life and Upheaval When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model aiming for a relocation to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about rude French men, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely. Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth Sooha’s buried emotions surface in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with details of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in the guesthouse. Performances and Directorial Approach The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and guest, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of modern ghost story. The film can be seen on Mubi from November 7.