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Microhabitat is a movie that asks and tries to answer the question everyone is forced to ask themselves at one point or another during their lives: what does personal freedom mean to you? And what are you willing to give up to live the life you want to lead?
These are massive questions that each and every one of us has to answer sooner or later, and a bitter reality that even the most functional societies will fail a certain percentage of its population. It’s to the film’s credit that writer/director Jeon Go-Woon manages to directly attack such a loaded subject with such a delicate balance of humor and poignancy.
It’s important to note that for the heroine of our film, this is an almost entirely self-inflicted form of fringe dwelling. Though Miso (Esom) struggles to get by in a Seoul where the price of everything is steadily increasing, it’s her choice to work only part time (as a housekeeper), and it’s equally her choice to opt out of having an actual place to live when her rent gets increased, deciding instead to dedicate her meager monetary resources on her twin vices of cigarettes and whisky.
And thus beings a comic odyssey of couch surfing, as a sense of pragmatic nostalgia drives Miso to seek out the former members of The Cruise, a rock band she used to manage, in order to reconnect.
And if they happen to have a spare room… so much the better.
After striking out with bassist turned overworked corporate drone Mun-yung, she talks her way into spending the night with unhappily married former keyboardist Hyun-jung, where there is much reminiscing and the hard truth that there must always be a sacrifice for survival in the modern world rears its head for the first (but not the last) time.
In her post film Q&A, Go-Woon indicated that her intent was to investigate the economic hardships of life in Seoul, and that comedy seemed to her the best way of illustrating such a potentially dark subject and still drawing in audiences who just want to be entertained. It’s a storytelling choice to pays great dividends, as the laughs make the sometimes bleak circumstances go down far smoother than they have any right to.
More to that point, Miso herself is just a fascinating character in and of herself. Esom’s understated, deeply sympathetic performance makes it easy to root for her when, objectively speaking, it could be said her behavior is downright immature and selfish. She states very clearly “My goal in life is to live debt free,” and clearly her ability to live exactly the life she wants within her means is a point of pride. But in order to maintain that freedom, she chooses to infringe upon the lives of others, who have made the sorts of sacrifices she refuses to make (and now potentially stands to benefit from). Yet when she gets called on this late in the film, it’s hard not to sympathize with her perspective, which seems almost innocent in comparison.
While the encounters with the various members of her band illustrate this in an episodic series of hilarious comic sketches, the point is best illustrated by the evolving relationship between Miso and her debt-ridden boyfriend Jae-Kyung. Aborted attempts to make love in Miso’s apartment (where the walls are so thin you can hear the freezing winds whipping through at all times and they have to wear multiple layers of clothing just to be able to stay there) and blood selling just to afford movie tickets are the sorts of actions Miso considers par for the course to maintain her lifestyle, but that Jae-Kyung finds increasingly unacceptable.
But of course, all this is just part and parcel to Go-Woon’s point, which is that everyone has to sacrifice something to live in Seoul. Neither she nor the film ever casts judgment on anyone for how they choose to deal with that reality, and it’s that openhearted approach that makes Microhabitat so moving an experience.
