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Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city 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, trapped between two cultures. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model aiming for a relocation to the capital. However this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider takes up residence for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to extract the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan remains a remote presence, upholding his loner ethic and sparing with details of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and guest, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film is available on the streaming service from November 7.