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Inspired by the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also camps in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model aiming for a move to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. At first matching her biases about rude French men, he turns out, on Googling him, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise 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 something else.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of secret, winding moments of physical constraint and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan remains a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in residence.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over absence, threatening to drown in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film can be seen on Mubi from November 7.