El Vigilante (The Security Guard) is Salvador, nickname Chava, night watchman of a construction site on the outskirts of Mexico City. As he arrives he is informed by policemen that a dead child has been found in a parked van a little way down the road. He is asked for a statement on anything he witnessed. That is the beginning of his troubles; his disclosure contradicts that of Hugo, the other watchman. What follows are convoluted, slightly unreal happenings where Salvador faces situations that finally preclude him from following his conscience. The background curtain is the night city viewed from a height, with fireworks indicating a festivity.
The events do not follow a coherent line or even give the viewer points to connect; they are more like an indecipherable labyrinth of mischief where even a father looking for a runaway son may be covering something else. Maybe the subject is the struggle of a good man against a bad society, but that wold only be a partial description.
Director Diego Ros and cinematographer Galo Olivares make good use of the huge construction site at night, with vast forests of naked concrete columns, labyrinthine underground enclosures, deserted workshops and menacing ends of rebars sticking out of floors and walls (there is a little overuse of expressionistic lighting). There are touches of black humor such as the unorthodox way to identify a child, or the grim proceedings incongruously followed at the end by the cool elegance of a Chopin nocturne. An unusual movie, to say the least, well worth a watch.
