She's a terrible singer, the bodyguard's niece, but it's the bodyguard's birthday, and this lamentable frog-voiced serenade is all he's got. Day in, day out, the bodyguard is invisible, a corporeal ghost who's unacknowledged by his boss if there's no breech in security. Sometimes he's hard to pick out in a crowded room. Even the camera is bored with Rueben(Julio Chavez). When the bodyguard wanders out of frame, the camera doesn't follow him. In other scenes, "La Custodian" demonstrates Rueben's lowly position within his employer's envoy through the filmmaker's meticulous compositions of assembled people, in which our protagonist doesn't occupy the center of the, excuse me, but I've got to use this term, mis-en-scene. In elevators loaded up to maximum capacity, in luncheon counters at crowded diners, even in his own bathroom while he shaves, Rueben is obscured by the animate and the inanimate. While waiting for his employer, Rueben smokes a cigarette behind a telephone pole. You can't see him. People can't see him. You see smoke, and where there's smoke, there's a fire. So on his birthday, a day when finally Rueben gets to be the center of attention, the song that's being performed in his honor takes on a particular significance. The birthday tribute validates him. It's no small exaggeration that Rueben's life depends on his niece finishing her song, down to the final missed note. But the restaurant owner instructs the waiters to shut down the karaoke machine. It's bad for business. The niece is awful. Rueben explodes. The performance was a bittersweet experience at best; a mediocre song for a mediocre life, but to add insult to injury, the food service workers deny him this tiny victory. It's the film's turning point.
When Rueben visits a supply shop, he purchases a gun, but a bullet-proof vest, as well, which neutralizes our perception that he's on the offensive. Besides, the gun is a tool of the trade. Although we're not shocked, the pop of the pistol gives off a palpable jolt to the senses when the bodyguard finally turns on his employer. The man he escorts to the bathroom. The man Rueben watches eat lunch at a restaurant while he waits outside in the car. The man whose life Rueben is supposed to protect. The man who never really sees Rueben. As a final irony, in the final seconds of the Minister of Planning's life, Rueben remained invisible to his boss to the very end. Artemio(Osmar Nunez) never saw it coming. He was unconscious at the time.
When Rueben visits a supply shop, he purchases a gun, but a bullet-proof vest, as well, which neutralizes our perception that he's on the offensive. Besides, the gun is a tool of the trade. Although we're not shocked, the pop of the pistol gives off a palpable jolt to the senses when the bodyguard finally turns on his employer. The man he escorts to the bathroom. The man Rueben watches eat lunch at a restaurant while he waits outside in the car. The man whose life Rueben is supposed to protect. The man who never really sees Rueben. As a final irony, in the final seconds of the Minister of Planning's life, Rueben remained invisible to his boss to the very end. Artemio(Osmar Nunez) never saw it coming. He was unconscious at the time.