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Adapted from a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing drama follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also camps in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still in utero, caught between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

When she’s not digging into visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model aiming for a move to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. At first matching her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, after an online search, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to extract the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions surface in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with details of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The trio of strong acts at the core – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed 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 exploring a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film can be seen on Mubi from November 7.