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Inspired by the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) 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 soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still in utero, caught between two cultures. After the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into visually stunning marine dishes prepared by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. At first matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he manages to prise the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in bursts of clandestine, winding moments of physical constraint and liberation. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the wary faceoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over absence, on the verge of drown in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.

Winter in Sokcho is available on the streaming service from 7 November.