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Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's debut film also camps in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she lingers uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Disruption

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a move to Seoul. However this comfy routine is disrupted when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, on Googling him, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he manages to prise the account 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 bursts of clandestine, winding moments of physical constraint and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a remote presence, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit separate from the main story, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and guest, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on absence, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from November 7.