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Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s debut film also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. After the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.

Daily Life and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a move to the capital. But this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. Initially matching her biases about rude French men, he proves, after an online search, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions surface in bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with details of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a tactile visual register. Obsessing over absence, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film is available on the streaming service from 7 November.