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Based on the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is forced 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 mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. However this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. At first matching her prejudices about rude French men, he proves, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes 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 buried emotions surface in bursts of secret, winding moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan remains a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with details of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a tactile visual register. Obsessing over absence, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.

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