It Was In May (1970) Spoiler-Free Summary – What It's About

In the quiet months after Germany’s surrender, a small Soviet reconnaissance detachment is posted to an isolated farmstead that seems untouched by the recent horrors. The landscape is a patchwork of freshly plowed fields, soot‑stained barns, and the lingering echo of wartime newsreels, creating a stark contrast between the ordinary rhythms of rural life and the unsettled aftermath of conflict.

The unit is led by Lieutenant Nikolaev, a pragmatic officer whose steady composure masks a deeper unease as he navigates the fragile peace of occupation. Their host, Rashke, a prosperous pig farmer, offers a courteous veneer that hints at unspoken layers of the past, while his younger wife and teenage son move through the household with a quiet, almost rehearsed normalcy. The soldiers, weary from years of combat, find their camaraderie tested by the subtle strains that run beneath the farm’s surface.

The film’s tone is deliberately meditative, moving between the stark realism of a war‑torn countryside and moments of hushed reflection that suggest something darker lies just out of view. Cinematic flourishes—archival footage that opens the story and a gentle, bittersweet arrangement of Sonny Bono’s “Mama” that closes it—underscore a persistent sense of melancholy and the uneasy transition from violence to tentative calm.

Within this restrained setting, the characters each carry their own burdens of memory and guilt, and the audience is invited to sense the tension between a world that appears to be rebuilding and the lingering shadows of recent atrocities. The result is a haunting portrait of a post‑war frontier where ordinary life resumes, yet the specter of what has been endured remains ever‑present.