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Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing 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: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. Once the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model aiming for a move to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of physical constraint and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with details of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the core – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho can be seen on the streaming service from 7 November.