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Based on the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also resides 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. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Upheaval

If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood prepared by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a move to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.

Emotional Landscape 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 internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and guest, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over absence, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.

Winter in Sokcho can be seen on the streaming service from November 7.