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Inspired by the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's first feature also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still in utero, trapped between dual heritages. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. Initially conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to prise the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes 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 subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with details of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the centre – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the cautious standoff between hotelier and visitor, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on absence, threatening to drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

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