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Inspired by a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also camps in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Disruption

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes prepared by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. At first matching her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he succeeds in extract the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions surface in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, upholding his solitary principles and sparing with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance prevents 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 profession, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest 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 Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on absence, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

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