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Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s debut film also resides in a liminal space 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 accompany the enigmatic author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

If not enjoying spectacular-looking marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model aiming for a move to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to prise the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with details of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on absence, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.

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