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Based on the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also camps in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, trapped between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a move to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about rude French men, he turns out, on Googling him, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the cautious standoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to drown in internal sensations, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho can be seen on Mubi from November 7.