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Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s debut film also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. Once the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model aiming for a move to the capital. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her biases about rude French men, he proves, after an online search, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions surface in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of physical constraint and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic 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 wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

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