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Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. Once the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she lingers uncomfortably between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. 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 turns out, on Googling him, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he manages to extract the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of physical constraint and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.

Performances and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the centre – an nearly aggressive Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho is available on the streaming service from 7 November.