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Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, caught between dual heritages. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes prepared by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. Initially matching her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to extract the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of secret, sinuous 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 details of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects 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 parent and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in residence.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the centre – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Bella 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 guest, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

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