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Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's first feature also resides 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. After the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Daily Life and Disruption

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes prepared by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a move to Seoul. However this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, after an online search, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to extract the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with details of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the core – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the cautious standoff between hotelier and guest, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on absence, on the verge of succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.

Winter in Sokcho is available on the streaming service from November 7.