Microhabitat

Microhabitat (Korean title: So-gong-nyeo) is a 2018 Korean black comedy, directed by Jeon Go-woon. The film asks what really matters if we want to remain ourselves—or hold on to our sense of self—while living under harsh economic conditions. Many Cornellians might relate: we inhabit a world in which our cultural and social capital often does not match our economic capital. Taste is a big part of how we present who we are.

The film centers on Miso, a house cleaner who realizes that she needs only cigarettes, whisky, and her boyfriend to be happy. When both cigarette prices and rent go up at the same time, rather than giving up her small pleasures, she gives up her apartment and begins staying with her old friends one by one. The film follows along on her journey, captivated by her refusal to surrender her personal tastes, joy, and freedom for economic stability, even though that stability itself seems impossible to reach. Through her story, we feel the weight of economic constraints as well as Korean youth’s responses to them.

The screening will be introduced by Jeongsu Shin, LB Korean Studies Postdoctoral Associate in the East Asia Program.

Free admission! Sponsored by the East Asia Program in the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies.

The screening is part of "How to Live in Disturbed Worlds," a spring series featuring two Korean films about girls navigating their own desires, tastes, and sense of self in a precarious and uncertain world.

In Korean with English subtitles. Courtesy of M-Line Distribution.