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Inspired by the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s first feature also camps in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still in utero, trapped between two cultures. Once the French-speaking employee is compelled to chaperone the enigmatic author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation 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 proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in prise 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.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of secret, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with details of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in residence.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over absence, threatening to drown in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film can be seen on the streaming service from 7 November.