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Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer 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, abandoned by her French father while she was still in utero, trapped between two cultures. After the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the enigmatic author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a move to the capital. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a long-term stay. At first matching her prejudices about rude French men, he turns out, on Googling him, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in extract the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of physical constraint and liberation. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, upholding his solitary principles and sparing with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects 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 mother and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park – give 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 emotionally speaking, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on absence, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from November 7.