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Inspired by a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Disruption

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. However this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. At first conforming to her biases about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the account 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 proxy father, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of physical constraint and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with details of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects 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 partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Performances 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 emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.

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