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Adapted from a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives author from France 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 liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Upheaval

If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. Initially matching her biases about rude French men, he proves, after an online search, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan remains a distant figure, upholding his solitary principles and sparing with particulars of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance 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 central idea for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit separate from the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in residence.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of drown in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.

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