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Adapted from a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film centers on guesthouse worker 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: Koya Kamura’s first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still in utero, caught between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is compelled to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uncomfortably between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Disruption

If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes prepared by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model aiming for a move to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. At first conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, after an online search, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of physical constraint and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, upholding his solitary principles and sparing with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.

The film can be seen on the streaming service from 7 November.