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Adapted from a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still in utero, trapped between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.

Daily Life and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. At first conforming to her biases about rude French men, he turns out, on Googling him, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.

Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in bursts of secret, winding moments of physical constraint and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s mother and partner both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film is available on Mubi from 7 November.