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Adapted from a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film centers on guesthouse worker 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 resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still in utero, caught between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uncomfortably between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes prepared by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to the capital. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. Initially conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he manages to prise the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in bursts of secret, winding moments of physical constraint and liberation. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with details of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit separate from the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – 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 tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

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