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Based on a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s first feature also resides in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Disruption

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes prepared by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a move to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, after an online search, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with details of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in residence.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on absence, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from 7 November.