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Based on a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also camps in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Daily Life and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a move to Seoul. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. Initially conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he manages to extract the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with details of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the core – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the cautious standoff between hotelier and guest, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.

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