A child of the Siberian steppes, transplanted by chance to Moscow to learn filmmaking, Shukshin was particularly cynical about the official version of rural life. He understood too well the brutal realities of agrarian life and bitterly condemned the insinuation of urban values into the countryside, seducing the young and setting them against their elders. In There Was a Lad, Shukshin's first feature, he takes a slightly optimistic bent. Young Pashka, a rustic free spirit, sets out on the road to encounter life. Wide-eyed, he's the definitive hero in a picaresque adventure, gullible, enthusiastic, forever cheerful. Traveling through Shukshin's own native Biisk region, his car breaks down and he accepts a lift from a truckdriver. Disinterested in his final destination, Pashka embarks on a Soviet version of the "road movie," mixing with a jocular selection of country folk and city slickers. A brief stopover occasions a romantic interlude at a town dance; an old woman he meets on the road tells him a remarkably bawdy tale; romance bubbles and deflates. And the condescending urbanites, it seems, are as naive about the countryside as Pashka is about the world beyond the steppes. Pashka's antidote for the patronizing values of the city is the strength of his fantasy life. His dreams of outlandish success provide a sardonic counterpoint to the sober portrayal of the overlooked hinterland.