🔗 Share this article Sokcho in Winter Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burn Tale of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a South Korean Frontier Town Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama follows hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also camps in a no man’s land 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 compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire. Daily Life and Disruption If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes prepared by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a move to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. Initially conforming to her biases about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he manages to prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely. Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of physical constraint and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects 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 cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it seems a bit separate from the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence. Acting and Directorial Approach The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the cautious standoff between hotelier and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale. Winter in Sokcho is available on the streaming service from 7 November.