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Inspired by a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing film centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's debut film also camps in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, caught between dual heritages. After the French-speaking employee is compelled to chaperone the enigmatic author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.

Daily Life and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. At first matching her biases about rude French men, he turns out, on Googling him, to be acclaimed 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 observes him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of secret, winding moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan stays a remote presence, upholding his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in residence.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the cautious standoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from 7 November.