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Based on a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also camps in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, trapped between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uncomfortably between tetchy friendship 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 relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model aiming for a relocation to the capital. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. Initially conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise 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 surrogate parent, or something else.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a remote presence, upholding his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit separate from the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of drown in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

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