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Based on the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s first feature also resides in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. Once the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a move to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. Initially conforming to her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, on Googling him, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to extract the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs 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 pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to drown in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.