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.