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Adapted from a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also camps in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still unborn, caught between dual heritages. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

If not enjoying visually stunning seafood prepared by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a move to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. At first conforming to her biases about rude French men, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he manages to extract the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of secret, winding moments of physical constraint and release. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with particulars 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 fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in residence.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The trio of strong acts at the core – an almost hostile Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film is available on Mubi from 7 November.