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Inspired by a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also camps in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. After the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Disruption

If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood prepared by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. However this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. At first matching 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 inspiration, he manages to prise the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan remains a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and sparing with details of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the centre – an nearly aggressive Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a tactile visual register. Fixating on absence, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from November 7.