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Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's first feature also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between two cultures. After the francophone hostess is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes prepared by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a move to Seoul. But this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. Initially matching her biases about rude French men, he proves, after an online search, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in bursts of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with details of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – 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 seems a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to succumb 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.