El custodio

"Extraño" is the name of the film I saw last year with Julio Chávez in the starring role. Directed by Santiago Loza, it followed the life of a mysterious man and the woman he fell in love with. At eighty minutes or so, the picture seemed too pretentious and desperate to achieve its hour and twenty minutes of duration…With a heavy and repetitive piano as the soundtrack, "Extraño" has a lot of similarities with Rodrigo Moreno's "El Custodio".

It's definitely a less pretentious project, but nevertheless risky. It's hard to get people and critics to like this type of contemplative cinema today, mostly in Argentina. Because contemplation is the best word that suits "El Custodio"; a very strong observation of a minister's (Osmar Nuñez) bodyguard's life. This man is Rubén, a character more silent than Chávez' "Extraño" and "Un oso rojo" together.

If you remember well, Rubén was also the name of the actor's role in the latter movie, a fabulous tale by Adrián Caetano. However, this Rubén required more commitment from the genius, because the mesmerizing portrayal is focused on the patience and the body movement almost completely…Truly; his character barely speaks.

There we arrive to the director's script, which shows the minister Chávez protects discussing politic issues that we don't even pay attention to; since Moreno's writing is more about the environment than about the situation. To be honest, nothing really deep happens in the movie; everything is routine as the main character's life, except for a visit to a country house, where the minister invites a French politician and asks Rubén (who draws) to make a portrait of him. "Very good", they tell him. "Thank you", he says, and he leaves.

Moreno's direction is also about the environment. The man's picture has the biggest count of still shots I'll probably see this year. The repeated frames of Chávez drinking water and following the minister everywhere got him recognition in the festival of Berlin and a lot of nominations to Argentina's most important awards.

What happened is that Moreno's father in-law became a minister, so he decided to join his bodyguards on their daily activities, filming them. "The bodyguards follow the minister; they don't know where he is going…They don't care", Moreno says in a short documentary about "El Custodio". "What happens inside their minds? What do they feel? This is what this movie is about".

The ending is as mythic as the rest of the movie. Something to think about for a while and maybe watch the slow film one more time.

Do you enjoy being transported to the scene? If you answer 'yes, I like to be transported to -say- Wonderland', then you should go somewhere else. This movie develops in the painful, ordinary, real world. Most people will find this movie annoying and somewhat boring. Some of us will regard it as an experience on its own. Rubén's some minister's minder, a bodyguard. His own life must leave room, be replaced by minister's. His life revolves around the minister, must follow him everywhere he goes, must wait for him while he's at work. Does nothing but waiting for him, reminding us of some kind of dog provided with some sort of self-awareness, feeling how left aside he is. His life's worth nothing. And that's where the point of the movie is. The goal is to make you experience his life, to share a piece of such empty existence. Julio Chávez (Rubén, the bodyguard) is a superb actor. I'm impressed by his ability to perform with everything except words. He doesn't need to talk to transmit feelings. And I've recently seen him on stage performing a word-based comedy, and he proved -to me- to be extremely ductile and flexible. He uses every "tool" available for his performance. You're warned. This movie deserves a 9 out of 10 for performance, 9 out of 10 in terms of psychological study. The only thing I didn't like is the final twist of the story. The rest is quite enjoyable. Julio Chávez... you're awesome!

Another Argentinian film that copies everything done before regarding shots and framing. Is like they all come from a film school that shows to the pupils films from the sixties and then, all of them copy here and there a shot. Amazing!. The real Argentinian cinema is Sorin and Agresti, the rest just plays with the ignorance of local film critics and snob festivals. Do this director has something original to offer?? The film is a bore, pretentious in simplicity. The pathetic thing shows that the director just wanted to show how much can copy but have nothing to say, absolutely nothing more than try to jump the leap and become a Fassbinder or any master sadly forgotten. Wake up people, take a look to the old masters and stop being amaze about things that already exist long long time ago.

Pretty much bodyguard Le Samourai with The Remains of the Day levels of developing the supporting character.

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.