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Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also camps in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. Once the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. However this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner takes up residence for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes 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 buried emotions erupt in bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with details of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella 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 innkeeper and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over absence, on the verge of succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film can be seen on Mubi from November 7.