The movie is inspired by writer-director Márta Mészáros' own childhood. The film is a grim reminder of horrible days under Stalinist period when several innocent people were persecuted for no fault. A good film which allow people to know how people in Europe were tortured before second world war by dictators and authoritarian regimes.

Imre Nagy led Hungary's 1956 revolution and was executed after its defeat. His name remained taboo for some 30 years, his political activity the subject of controversy and heated debate – up until his complete personal rehabilitation and that of his political legacy. THE UNBURIED MAN was among the first gestures to pay tribute to him and grant him a public “appearance”. The film, however, is not set in the tumultuous days of the revolution but instead depicts the last period of Nagy’s life, from his time inside his refuge at the Yugoslav Embassy up to his secret execution, in what proves to be a singularly intimate encounter with a key personality of 20th-century European history.

This movie is based on the life of Saint Edith Stein. She was a German nun of Jewish descent who had converted to Catholicism. Much of her early life was spent as an outspoken academic. There, according to the movie, she feuded with Joseph Heller, a fellow professor with right wing beliefs. In 1933, after Jews were no longer allowed to teach, she became a nun in the Spartan-like Carmelite order. But when World War II heated up, Heller, who had become an important Nazi official, took his revenge. He had her deported to Auschwitz

During a costume party on New Years Eve, a group of revelers join a celibration drinking and cheering in the New Year. One party goer, having drank too much, sticks her head out the window and hollars bitterly against the regeim in which they live. Within seconds uniformed police knock at the door and insist on searching the papers of all the group present. The partygoes look dumbfounded, looking ridiculous in their costumes and brutish policemen search them.
This is the nightmarish world of Hungary on New Years 1957 in the startling "Diary for my Mother and Father."
This story follows a young student, who is orphaned as she grows to adulthood in the shaddow of the 1956 Hungarian uprising. Coming from the communist intellegensia, he sees her friends and family react differently. Her lover, a married factory manager supports the patriots and later assists fellow workers in staging a strike. Meanwhile her sister and others express anger at being forced from their homes during the revolution and continue to express a hatred for the rebels afterwards. But in the end they realize that for all people, real life is not possible after the revolt and its brutal suppression by the Soviets and their collaborators.

1987年柏林电影节银熊奖(Outstanding Singe Achievement by Marta Meszaros)，OCIC奖(评审团特别奖）