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Based on the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: 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 French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence 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 partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to the capital. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s buried emotions surface in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of physical constraint and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with details of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s mother and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.