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Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Disruption

If not enjoying visually stunning seafood prepared by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. But this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he manages to prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions surface in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of physical constraint and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with details of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and guest, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over absence, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film can be seen on Mubi from November 7.