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Based on a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's first feature also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the enigmatic author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Daily Life and Upheaval

If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model aiming for a move 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 impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to prise the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan remains a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit separate from the main story, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the core – 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 guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

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