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Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also camps in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Daily Life and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into visually stunning marine dishes prepared by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model aiming for a move to the capital. But this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider takes up residence for a long-term stay. At first conforming to her prejudices about rude French men, he proves, after an online search, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in 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.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of secret, winding moments of physical constraint and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with details of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from November 7.