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Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) 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, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, caught between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model aiming for a move to Seoul. However this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her prejudices about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he manages to extract the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions surface in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho can be seen on the streaming service from November 7.