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Inspired by the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still in utero, trapped between two cultures. After the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Disruption

If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model aiming for a move to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. At first conforming to her prejudices about rude French men, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he manages to extract the account of Sooha’s absent parent 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 Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the core – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to drown in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.

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