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Based on the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: 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 unborn, caught between two cultures. After the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Disruption

When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. However this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of creative fuel, 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 another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with details of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between innkeeper and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over absence, threatening to drown in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

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