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Inspired by the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s debut film also camps in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, caught between dual heritages. After the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uncomfortably between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. At first conforming to her biases about rude French men, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in 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 surrogate parent, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s buried emotions surface in bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, 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 desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit separate from the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, 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.

The film can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.