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Inspired by a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing film follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned 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 loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. However this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. Initially matching her biases about rude French men, he proves, after an online search, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over absence, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.

Winter in Sokcho can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.