🔗 Share this article

Based on a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also camps in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. But this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. At first matching her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, on Googling him, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he manages to prise the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with details of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit separate from the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in residence.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over absence, threatening to drown in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film can be seen on Mubi from November 7.