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Based on a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also camps in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to accompany the enigmatic author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes prepared by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model aiming for a move to Seoul. But this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. At first matching her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, on Googling him, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he manages to extract the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions surface in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of physical constraint and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with details of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the core – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over absence, threatening to drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film can be seen on Mubi from November 7.