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Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing drama centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also camps in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between two cultures. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model aiming for a move to Seoul. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. At first matching her prejudices about rude French men, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with details of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit separate from the main story, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

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