a delicate first film carried by an immense Roschdy Zem

Critique
Drama by Koya Kamura, with Roschdy Zem, Bella Kim (France-Korea, 1h45). In theaters January 8 ★★★★☆

To go further

A famous designer artist from Paris settles down in a small inn near the border between the two Koreas. On site, a young woman born to a French father serves as his guide. After “The Missing Part” released a few weeks ago, this first film in turn explores the theme of geographical and family breakdown. But the comparison stops there. No sociology of divorce, none of its dramas in this superb first film, delicate but in no way fragile, adaptation of the novel by Elisa Shua Dusapin (ed. Zoé), narrating implicitly without ever resolving the questions of paternity and reunion which under -tend the story. Into this unsaid we find possibilities and frustrations that nourish the staging. This sensory film clings to gestures (he paints, she cooks) to make the link between the two characters, and the muffled sound of footsteps on the snow echoes the modesty of a man sucked in by his art and his melancholy ( Roschdy Zem, immense), and a young woman (Bella Kim) trying to reconcile with a failing father figure.