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Inspired by a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone 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, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the enigmatic author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Daily Life and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes prepared by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a move to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her biases about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but the question lingers 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 physical constraint and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan remains a remote presence, upholding 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 hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and guest, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho can be seen on the streaming service from November 7.