The Taste of Koumiz

’The Taste of Koumiz’, Christiaens’ first feature film, is all about the consequences of the communist regime for nomadic tribes in the Russian province of Kyrgyzstan. The narrator saw how his father, the chief of a tribe, was deported in the thirties, becoming isolated from nomadic life. The images of the Kyrgyzstan countryside and its inhabitants are rendered in contrasting black-and-white and accompanied by dark violins. As a result the film predominantly breathes nostalgia. ’The Taste of Koumiz’ is more of a poetical and melancholic account than a documentary in the usual sense.