Microhabitat (dir. Jeon Go-Woon, 2017)- EveryFilmIWatch review

Microhabitat is a really curious little debut from Korean filmmaker Jeon Go-woon. The film limits itself in a manner indicative of a considered and cautious first time director- proposing a single question and seeing the answer through to its end.

The film asks what might happen if one stopped sacrificing trivial joys for the sake of financial stability and societal acceptance. The character who lives this conundrum out for the audience is Mi-so, a young woman (portrayed with sensibility and grace by the mononymous Esom) who finds happiness in three things: cigarettes, good whiskey and spending time with her likeable but naive boyfriend.

When rent and cigarettes increase in price, Mi-so is faced with an apparently easy choice which becomes a dilemma: she can either give up smoking and her regular glass of whisky, or she can move out of her apartment.

Mi-so’s not irresponsible per-se: in fact she’s actually rather organized, budgeting the small income she makes as a housekeeper down to the last penny. So her surprising and initially amusing decision to pack her bags and try and find a friend to stay with is very much the product of rational, if unusual, logic. She simply likes these things more than she likes the guarantee of a roof over her head.

The film watches her bouncing between the houses of old friends who all have what she doesn’t: a place of their own. All of her friends reveal themselves to be crippled by other problems, a clever narrative device that shows that, in a way, Mi-so has achieved a sort of happiness that they’re incapable of. It’s a film that promotes the melancholy nobility of individualism, even when it’s frowned upon. Mi-so ends up alone, because others can’t reconcile her lifestyle with what they see as the rules. But she doesn’t mind and, having come to understand her, we the audience don’t mind either.

EveryFilmIWatch is multi-channel film review project run by Sebastian Cox, ScriptUp co-founder. Further reviews can be found on Instagram.