Based on the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing film centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also camps in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still in utero, trapped between dual heritages. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Disruption
When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes prepared by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. But this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. At first conforming to her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to extract the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.
Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s buried emotions surface in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a remote presence, upholding his loner ethic and sparing with details of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Cinematic Craft
The trio of strong acts at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to drown in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.
The film can be seen on the streaming service from 7 November.
