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Based on the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also camps in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between two cultures. Once the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Daily Life and Upheaval

If not enjoying visually stunning seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a move to Seoul. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider takes up residence for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her biases about rude French men, he turns out, on Googling him, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with details of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between innkeeper and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on absence, threatening to drown in internal sensations, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.

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