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Adapted from the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also camps in a liminal space 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 enigmatic author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of secret, winding moments of physical constraint and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s mother and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.

Performances and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored 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 consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho can be seen on the streaming service from 7 November.