🔗 Share this article

Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's first feature also camps in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. After the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a move to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence for a long-term stay. At first matching her prejudices about rude French men, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of clandestine, winding moments of physical constraint and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his history. 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. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit separate from the main story, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.

The film is available on Mubi from 7 November.