Local Prophet is a meditation on futility of communication. The film contemplates two distinct types of powerlessness: that of the highly self-conscious narrator, who has all the words at her disposal, but feels that words will dispose of her; and that of the on-screen character she has allowed words to conjure up, an innocent victim of life who has never entered the world. In the absence of tragedy — that of a self that is sometimes glimpsed but barely known — what else is there to do but nurture an idiotic hope that some regeneration will come about? Caught in the restlessness of want, the prophet withholds and tells too much.