🔗 Share this article

Inspired by the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also camps in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still in utero, trapped between two cultures. Once the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Daily Life and Disruption

When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood prepared by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model aiming for a move to Seoul. But this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. At first conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to prise the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with details of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the core – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.

Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from 7 November.