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Inspired by a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also resides in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, trapped between two cultures. After the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Daily Life and Disruption

If not enjoying visually stunning seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to the capital. But this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about rude French men, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of secret, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan remains a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with details of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and visitor, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of drown in internal sensations, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

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