🔗 Share this article

Based on a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also camps in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. Once the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.

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 boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a move to Seoul. But this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner takes up residence for a long-term stay. At first matching her biases about rude French men, he proves, after an online search, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in extract the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a vent – 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 bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains a distant figure, upholding his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the wary faceoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.

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