🔗 Share this article

Inspired by the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s debut film also camps in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. Once the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uncomfortably between strained companionship and complex desire.

Daily Life and Upheaval

If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a move to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the foreigner takes up residence for a long-term stay. At first matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, after an online search, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.

Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in bursts of secret, winding moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, upholding his solitary principles and sparing with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s parent and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit separate from the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.

Winter in Sokcho is available on the streaming service from November 7.