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Based on a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts 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 resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still unborn, caught between dual heritages. Once the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Upheaval

If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model aiming for a move to Seoul. However this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. Initially matching her biases about rude French men, he proves, after an online search, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions surface in bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of physical constraint and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with details of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.

Performances and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to drown in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from November 7.