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Adapted from the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) 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 debut film also camps in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still unborn, caught between dual heritages. Once the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the enigmatic author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to the capital. However this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, after an online search, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he manages to prise the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s buried emotions surface in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays 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 deliberate – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film is available on the streaming service from November 7.