Winter in Sokcho Film Review: Restrained Adaptation

Marking the debut feature film of Koya Kamura, literary adaptation Winter in Sokcho is a subtle slow-burner, almost to a fault.

Soo-Ha (Bella Kim) lives a quiet life in Sokcho, a seaside village close enough to the North Korean border that tourists often take day trips to the famous DMZ. It isn’t tourist season right now, which is what makes the arrival of successful French artist Yan Kerrand (Roschdy Zem) at the hotel she works at all the more surprising. Not only does this new guest allow her, initially reluctantly, to practice the language she studied at university, but his presence unlocks a curiosity about her past and the French father who disappeared from her life before she was even born.

The majority of our time is spent basking in the conversations between Soo-Ha and Yan, as the young woman becomes a sort of unofficial tour guide for the artist in search of inspiration. It’s a quiet slow-burner of a film, one that hinges on the interplay between its characters far more than its slender plot. Just as well then that our leads are up to the task, particularly newcomer Kim, who is the real MVP of Winter in Sokcho with her subtle turn as Soo-Ha. Disturbed and galvanised in equal measure by the presence of Yan, throughout the film we see the protagonist grapple with her identity, an eating disorder, an unhappy relationship and confusing new feelings for the older Frenchman, yet the effects of these troubles rarely register on her cool exterior. Kim portrays her with impressive restraint, the character’s resistance to vulnerability painfully clear.

Zem’s Yan is similarly impenetrable, though his modest lodgings serve to bring the aloof artist down to Earth and expose what may be to Soo-Ha a disappointing humanness. The French-Moroccan actor portrays him with just the right amount of mystery, mercifully refraining from common ‘tortured artist’ clichés. His creative mind is visualised by a series of animated sequences, a device also used to explore the inner workings of Soo-Ha’s psyche as she is inspired by her new companion. In an otherwise unremarkably shot film, these visual touches are most welcome.

Yet despite these glimpses into our characters’ souls, the film is so understated that it’s hard to glean anything of substance from their words or actions. Often this subtlety is to be applauded, Soo-Ha’s body dysmorphia, for example, could go unnoticed by some viewers for most of the film, as it is by the people around her. But as the bathetic ending rears its head, including a confrontation with Soo-Ha’s mother about her absent father that falls flat, it’s hard to say if we know our characters that much better than we did 100 minutes earlier. It seems that in the transition from novel to film, a certain literary interiority got lost and Kamura’s visual flourishes aren’t quite enough to make up the deficit.

There’s plenty beneath the surface of Winter in Sokcho, this tale of identity and alienation set to the backdrop of a border town in a divided country, but you’ll have to work for it. What makes Kamura’s debut worthwhile is the emotionally intelligent performance from his lead, who internalises the anxieties of her protagonist with admirable ease. It won’t be for everyone, but let’s hope it’s a success, because I for one can’t wait to see what Bella Kim does next.

Winter in Sokcho was screened at TIFF on September 8, 2024.