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Inspired by a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) 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 no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, trapped between dual heritages. Once the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a move to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. At first matching her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he manages to extract the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.

Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s buried emotions surface in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with particulars of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in residence.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of drown in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho can be seen on the streaming service from November 7.