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Based on a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also camps in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the enigmatic author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model aiming for a move to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence for a long-term stay. At first conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, on Googling him, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he manages to extract the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with details 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 restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the cautious standoff between hotelier and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

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