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Inspired by a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also resides in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. After the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a move to the capital. But this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her prejudices about rude French men, he turns out, on Googling him, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of secret, winding moments of physical constraint and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered 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 guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

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