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Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still in utero, caught between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. However this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about rude French men, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the account 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.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of physical constraint and liberation. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with details of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Directorial Approach

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

Winter in Sokcho can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.