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Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also camps in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. After the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the enigmatic author, she loiters uncomfortably between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes prepared by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. At first conforming to her prejudices about rude French men, he proves, after an online search, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in bursts of clandestine, winding moments of physical constraint and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with details of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s mother and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the centre – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

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