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Adapted from the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's debut film also camps in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. After the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Daily Life and Disruption

When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to the capital. But this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he manages to extract 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 surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in flashes of secret, winding moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s mother and partner both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide 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 in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to drown in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.