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Adapted from the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing film follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also camps in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. However this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. At first conforming to her biases about rude French men, he proves, after an online search, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he manages to extract the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of physical constraint and liberation. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with details of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s mother and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film can be seen on the streaming service from November 7.