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Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still in utero, caught between two cultures. After the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uncomfortably between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Disruption

When she’s not digging into visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to the capital. However this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. Initially matching her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he manages to extract the account of Sooha’s missing father 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.

Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of physical constraint and liberation. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit separate from the main story, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy 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 cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always 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 fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho is available on the streaming service from 7 November.