🔗 Share this article

Adapted from a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) 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 soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uncomfortably between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

If not enjoying spectacular-looking marine dishes cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, after an online search, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he manages to prise the story 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 something else.

Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of physical constraint and release. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan stays a remote presence, upholding his solitary principles and sparing with details 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. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of drown in internal sensations, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film is available on the streaming service from 7 November.