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Based on a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also camps in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a move to Seoul. However this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. Initially matching her prejudices about rude French men, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he manages to extract the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in bursts of clandestine, winding moments of physical constraint and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan remains a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with details of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Acting 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 emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on absence, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.