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Adapted from the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also camps in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. Once the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (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 outsider settles in for a long-term stay. Initially matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the story 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 another figure entirely.

Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s buried emotions surface in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic 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 reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit separate from the main story, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over absence, on the verge of succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

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