主角耶利米的生財架生一頭牛和貨車給偷了。他找警察報案，其間發現一幫少年在密謀綁架一名少女Helena，而當中的密謀主腦就是村裏的富家子。貪污和貧窮、警察和無政府狀態，才是導演要講的故事。如果身為警察的審判者都貪污，正道何在？結果耶利米去教堂找神父，神父叫他找警察。耶利米說警察都找過，可是警察也勸他不要多事。神父叫他祈禱求神幫助，因爲神會審判，公義在祂。耶利米說，可是那個少女將會給殺死，求公義有用嗎？他再次找警察，結果挨了一身毒打。耶利米很絕望，他祈禱同神講數，以絕食四十日徒步四十日交換少女的命，這是他唯一能做的，就是爲了救回少女Helena。

An engkanto, or encanto, is an often-malign spirit dwelling in the Filipino countryside, although in Death in the Land of Encantos, some of them have migrated to eastern Europe as exiles. Their human counterpart is the film’s protagonist, Benjamin (“Hamin”) Agusan, a poet who returns from years in Russia to search for the body of his girlfriend in the wake of a catastrophic typhoon and landslides. These 2006 disasters devastated the Bicol region where Diaz’s films have been set since Evolution of a Filipino Family, killing thousands. This film, which inaugurated Diaz’s “trauma trilogy,” includes documentary footage in an attempt to record the suffering of the local inhabitants.
A Filipino poet named Benjamin Agusan (Roeder Camanag) is the hapless native who returns to his hometown Padang to witness the aftermat h of the super typhoon. For the past seven years, Benjamin had been living in an old town called Kaluga in Russia. With his grant and residency, he taught and conducted workshops in a university. The poet published two books of sadness and longing in the process. In Russia, Benjamin was able to shoot video collages, fell in love with a Slavic beauty, buried a son, and almost went mad. He came back to bury his dead-father, mother, sister and a lover. He came back to face Mount Mayon, the raging beauty and muse of his youth. He came home to confront the country that he so loved and hated, the Philippines. He came back to die in the land of his birth. He wanders around the obliterated village meeting old friends and lovers.

A majestic film in which two stories easily fit. One about a filmmaker who is a little like Diaz himself and wrestles with the completion of his film and with greedy film festival programmers. And one about a religious leader. Also a little like Diaz himself?
The films of Lav Diaz often tell serious epic stories, but they are still not entirely free from humour and satire. For instance in this film, Diaz takes the mickey out of festival programmers and also sketches a picture of himself that is not entirely free from self-mockery.
The film has two or three stories (also a film in the film) and one of them focuses on the filmmaker Homer, who very much resembles Lav Diaz himself. The tortured filmmaker wrestles with completing his film. Despite pleas from those around him and from eager programmers, he continues to refuse to regard his film as finished. Alongside the story about a nun in the film on which Homer is working, there’s another story about the religious leader Father Turbico. Turbico leads a sect in the countryside that is primarily made up of young women. When one of the women wants to leave the sect, a dramatic situation ensues.
By telling the stories in parallel, similarities become visible between Homer’s struggle with cinema and Turbico's struggle with faith.

Three people start a strange therapy to escape their agonies through process of execution. Each attempts to process those they lost during the Marcos dictatorship while examining their own grief.

The Philippines, 1972. Mysterious things are happening in a remote barrio. Wails are heard from the forest, cows are hacked to death, a man is found bleeding to death at the crossroad and houses are burned. Ferdinand E. Marcos announces Proclamation No. 1081 putting the entire country under Martial Law.