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Based on a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle 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 Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. Once the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the enigmatic author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

If not enjoying spectacular-looking marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. Initially matching her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded 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 vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in bursts of secret, winding moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan remains a distant figure, upholding his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in residence.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the centre – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and guest, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film is available on the streaming service from November 7.