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Adapted from a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, 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 chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Daily Life and Disruption

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood prepared by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. At first conforming to her prejudices about rude French men, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he manages to extract the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of physical constraint and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy 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. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.

The film is available on Mubi from 7 November.