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Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, trapped between two cultures. Once the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model aiming for a relocation to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he succeeds in extract the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan remains a remote presence, upholding his solitary principles and sparing with details of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit separate from the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in residence.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the core – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the cautious standoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on absence, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.

Winter in Sokcho can be seen on Mubi from November 7.