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Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s debut film also camps in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. After the French-speaking employee is compelled to chaperone the enigmatic author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the foreigner takes up residence for a long-term stay. At first matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he manages to prise the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and guest, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over absence, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

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