La Steppa on AllMovie

A boy becomes a man in this allegorical drama that chronicles the journey of the boy, his uncle and his father across rural Russia to the city where the boy will go to school. Along the way, they have many experiences and each one teaches the boy a valuable lesson about life and maturity. The majority of the film covers his journey through the vast Russian tundra by horse-drawn cart. He observes colorful folk dances, the wonders of natural beauty, and he delights in the simple fisherman harpooning salmon from a bucolic babbling brook. This film looms as a thinly disguised travelogue, as the journey itself becomes more important than the boy's final destination.