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Based on a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also camps in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uncomfortably between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Disruption

When she’s not digging into visually stunning marine dishes prepared by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model aiming for a relocation to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her prejudices about rude French men, he proves, after an online search, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he manages to extract the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of physical constraint and release. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with particulars of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it seems a bit separate from the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and guest, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.

The film can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.