A narrator with an omniscient and external point of view on a movie is called a heterodiegetic one. He can't participate to the story he tells, for he's not in it, but beside it. The great achievement of "El Custodio" is to adopt this heterodiegetic point of view, and to transform it into a real character, who is the center of the movie, his heart as well as its reason to to exist. But this original point of view also always stays out of the world he lives in, and is excluded from the story he's supposed to be the hero. That's why this movie, certainly the first absolutely heterodiegetic, gives like never the frightful feeling to always stand unseen and at the edge of the world when your work dooms you to the invisible and nonexistence.
The movie is centered on Rubèn, a character unable to occupies the all space because of is function : he is the bodyguard of a Argentine minister, and for that, it seems that he doesn't have the right to exist independently. And the all bet of the movie is to keep this strange heterodiegetic point of view in a realistic way all along. The realism has here a double face : a documentary one and a subjective one. The first one means that we constantly fallow the character in his everyday life, in its absolute routine (fallow the minister, wait for him for hours, buy a new bulletproof vest, etc.). No need to say that this bodyguard doesn't have the life of Aaron Pierce (the bodyguard of President Palmer in "24") and doesn't risk his life everyday. The movie constantly avoid any action scene, because the reality of a bodyguard's life isn't full of action and tension, but full of waiting, humiliation and waist of time.
The second realistic aspect of the movie is apparently in contradiction with this documentary aspect, but is far more important : it's a subjective realism. The all movie is always seen with Rubèn's eyes, and that's where it becomes interesting. You really have the feeling to experience a bodyguard's live, to see through his eyes and to understand his loneliness while watching this movie. This point of view is remarkably developed from the first frame (when you see the first ritual of a long list of rituals to come : Rubèn's shaving in the morning, then dressing with his bullet proof vest...) to the last (absolutely logical, but a little bit predictable), with some experimental cadres, reflections games on mirrors and building glasses and graphic and cold symmetrical constructions.
The all movie is perfectly draft and carries with courage its original theme to its end. And if there's no action in it, the movie is always dense and tense, for the routine that the movie describes can be blown away at any moment. And the terrifying impression of becoming invisible to the very same people you work for and you're supposed to give your life to protect when your function tells you to, remains long after the screening.
