Based on the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s first feature also camps in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.
If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a move to the capital. But this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. Initially conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he manages to extract the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.
Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of physical constraint and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in residence.
The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the cautious standoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
The film can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.
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