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Adapted from a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director 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 unborn, caught between two cultures. Once the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the enigmatic author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

If not enjoying visually stunning seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. At first matching her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he manages to prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit separate from the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in residence.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the core – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over absence, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film is available on Mubi from 7 November.