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Adapted from the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's first feature 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 two cultures. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

If not enjoying visually stunning seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to 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 another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions surface in bursts of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation 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 imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit separate from the main story, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, increasingly scattered 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 innkeeper and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over absence, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.

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