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Adapted from the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing film follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north 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 father from France while she was still in utero, trapped between dual heritages. After the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uncomfortably between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. 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 extract the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – 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 vocation, it feels a bit separate from the main story, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a tactile visual register. Obsessing over absence, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from 7 November.