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Based on a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. Once the French-speaking employee is compelled to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

If not enjoying visually stunning seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a move to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. At first conforming to her biases about rude French men, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of physical constraint and release. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a remote presence, upholding his loner ethic and sparing with details of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit separate from the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring 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 can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.