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Inspired by a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also camps in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Disruption

If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a move to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about rude French men, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he succeeds in extract 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 surrogate parent, or something else.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in flashes of secret, winding moments of physical constraint and liberation. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with details of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s mother and partner both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in residence.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

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