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Based on the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. After the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into visually stunning marine dishes prepared by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. However this comfy routine is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her biases about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in bursts of secret, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s mother and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit separate from the main story, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and guest, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on absence, on the verge of drown in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

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