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Inspired by a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also camps in a liminal space of the spirit, 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 accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. However this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider 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 comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he manages to prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of secret, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan remains a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the core – an almost hostile Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from November 7.