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Inspired by the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to the capital. But this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to extract the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of physical constraint and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan remains a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and visitor, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.

Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from 7 November.