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Based on the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s debut film also camps in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uncomfortably between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes prepared by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. But this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her prejudices about rude French men, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded 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 observes him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the main story, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on absence, on the verge of drown in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

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