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Inspired by the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya 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 unborn, caught between two cultures. After the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes prepared 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. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. At first matching her prejudices about rude French men, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he succeeds in extract the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions surface in flashes of secret, winding moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, upholding his loner ethic and sparing with details of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s mother and partner both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on absence, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film can be seen on the streaming service from November 7.