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Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also camps in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still in utero, trapped between dual heritages. After the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she lingers uncomfortably between strained companionship and complex desire.

Daily Life and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence 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 comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of physical constraint and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan remains a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with details of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the core – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and guest, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to drown in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.

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