Zé do Caixão is an undertaker in a small Brazilian town, searching for the perfect woman to bear him a superior child. Unable to conceive with his wife, he kills her and sets out to find someone else.
A naked stranger emerges from the sea to perform miracles in a nearby town and become a modern messiah whose deeds will affect the whole world.
A psychiatric doctor driven to insanity by nightmare visions of Zé do Caixão trying to steal his wife is helped by colleagues who enlist creator José Mojica Marins to convince the patient that he does not exist.
