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Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also camps in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still in utero, trapped between dual heritages. Once the French-speaking employee is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Disruption

If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model aiming for a relocation to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. Initially matching her biases about rude French men, he proves, after an online search, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, upholding his solitary principles and sparing with particulars of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the cautious standoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to drown in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film can be seen on the streaming service from 7 November.