Inspired by a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, trapped between dual heritages. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.
When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to the capital. However this comfy routine is disrupted when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. At first matching her biases about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he manages to prise the account 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.
Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and sparing with details of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.
The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over absence, threatening to drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.
The film is available on the streaming service from 7 November.
A tech journalist and software developer with over a decade of experience covering AI advancements and cybersecurity trends across Europe.
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