🔗 Share this article

Inspired by a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's debut film also camps in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. Once the French-speaking employee is compelled to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Daily Life and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model aiming for a move to the capital. But this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider takes up residence for a long-term stay. At first matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he manages to prise the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of physical constraint and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with details of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit separate from the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the cautious standoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film is available on the streaming service from 7 November.