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Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone 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 French father while she was still unborn, caught between dual heritages. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

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 partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model aiming for a move to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search 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 something else.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions surface in bursts of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.

Performances and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the centre – an nearly aggressive Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

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