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Adapted from the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still in utero, trapped between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Disruption

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes prepared by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. However this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. Initially matching her biases about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he manages to prise the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of secret, winding moments of physical constraint and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over absence, on the verge of succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.

The film can be seen on Mubi from November 7.