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Inspired by a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also camps in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still in utero, caught between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the enigmatic author, she lingers uncomfortably between strained companionship and complex desire.

Daily Life and Disruption

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to the capital. However this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her biases about rude French men, he proves, after an online search, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he succeeds in extract the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions surface in bursts of secret, winding moments of physical constraint and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan remains a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems 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 nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on absence, threatening to drown in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho is available on the streaming service from November 7.