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Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, trapped between two cultures. Once the French-speaking employee is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uncomfortably between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a move to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. At first matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he succeeds in extract the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s buried emotions surface in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with details of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over absence, threatening to drown in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.

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