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Inspired by the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s debut film also camps in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. After the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

If not enjoying spectacular-looking marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a move to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a long-term stay. At first matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he manages to prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the core – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – 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 tactile visual register. Fixating on absence, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.

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