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Adapted from the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also camps in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still unborn, caught between dual heritages. Once the French-speaking employee is compelled to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

If not enjoying visually stunning seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a move to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. At first matching her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, on Googling him, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s mother and partner both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and guest, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.

The film can be seen on the streaming service from November 7.