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Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also camps in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between two cultures. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to the capital. However this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. Initially matching her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he manages to prise the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions surface in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic 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 reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, 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. Obsessing over absence, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.

The film is available on the streaming service from November 7.