🔗 Share this article

Inspired by a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also camps in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. After the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Daily Life and Upheaval

If not enjoying visually stunning seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model aiming for a move to Seoul. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the foreigner takes up residence for a long-term stay. At first matching her biases about rude French men, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in extract the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a air duct – 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, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, 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 one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s mother and partner both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the main story, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.