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Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing film centers on 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 first feature also camps in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. After the francophone hostess is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a move to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. At first matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he manages to extract the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of secret, winding moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a remote presence, upholding his solitary principles and sparing with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in residence.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances 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 narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over absence, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.