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Adapted from a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama centers on guesthouse worker 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 resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, caught between dual heritages. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Daily Life and Upheaval

If not enjoying spectacular-looking marine dishes prepared by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (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 extended visit. Initially conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a vent – 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 flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of physical constraint and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan remains a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with details of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the cautious standoff between hotelier and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to drown in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.

The film can be seen on Mubi from November 7.