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Adapted from a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing film centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also resides in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into visually stunning marine dishes prepared by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model aiming for a relocation to the capital. But this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider takes up residence for a long-term stay. At first matching her biases 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 inspiration, he succeeds in extract the story of Sooha’s missing father 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 clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a remote presence, upholding his solitary principles and stingy with details of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.

The film can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.