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Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ 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 unborn, caught between two cultures. After the francophone hostess is compelled to accompany the enigmatic author, she lingers uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to the capital. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. At first conforming to her biases about rude French men, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he manages to extract the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the mysterious bandaged diner 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 – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on absence, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho can be seen on Mubi from November 7.