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Adapted from a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. After the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model aiming for a move to Seoul. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about rude French men, he proves, after an online search, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, upholding his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s mother and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in residence.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the cautious standoff between hotelier and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film is available on the streaming service from November 7.