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Inspired by the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also camps in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a move to Seoul. However this comfy routine is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, after an online search, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he manages to extract the account 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.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in bursts of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the cautious standoff between hotelier and guest, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, 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.

The film can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.