Based on a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing film follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, trapped between dual heritages. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.
If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to the capital. But this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. Initially matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he manages to prise the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.
Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
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 cautious standoff between hotelier and visitor, 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 fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho can be seen on the streaming service from 7 November.
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