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Based on a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the enigmatic author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. But this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. Initially matching her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in extract the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s buried emotions surface in flashes of secret, winding moments of physical constraint and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance hinders 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 central idea for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to 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 Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

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