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Based on the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. After the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the enigmatic author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a move to the capital. But this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. At first conforming to her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he succeeds in extract 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 another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of secret, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it seems 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 centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the cautious standoff between innkeeper and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on absence, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho can be seen on the streaming service from November 7.