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Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama follows hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s debut film also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the enigmatic author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Daily Life and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model aiming for a move to Seoul. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a long-term stay. At first matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of physical constraint and liberation. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with details of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on absence, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

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