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Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the enigmatic author, she lingers uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model aiming for a move to Seoul. However this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit 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 something else.

Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of physical constraint and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan remains a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and sparing with details of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in residence.

Performances and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the core – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a tactile visual register. Fixating on absence, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.

Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from November 7.