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Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s first feature also resides in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still in utero, caught between two cultures. Once the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Daily Life and Upheaval

If not enjoying visually stunning seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model aiming for a move to Seoul. However this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. At first conforming to her biases about rude French men, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he manages to extract the account 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 something else.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan remains a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with details of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s mother and partner both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on absence, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film is available on Mubi from November 7.