About a Mexican Standoff

1 - Picture

The collection of Muralha, Association of Guimares for the preservation of the

Heritage, is made up of five thousand and thirty-six photographic originals, negative
glass photographic plates and negative silver film. Those images are mostly from the
photographic studio Foto Elctrica-Moderna, and they covered a period from 1890 to
1960 in a variety of themes that goes from the public space - life in the city, in the
countryside and industry - to studio pictures and some curiously staged photos. This
archive is now available online at reimaginar.org thus fulfilling its function: to be shared
and open to the world.
In Uses of Photography, John Berger sustains the creation of a context for the reading of
photographic images, and it should be made of words, of other pictures and of a radial
memory which does not end in a single interpretation. He writes "there isn't a unique
approach to something recollected.". And the memory, which is so connected to the
photographic image by its chemical and binary apprehension of the real, is seen as a
simultaneous process of inclusion and exclusion (political and fictional); in this
particular case, it is connected to the photographic image.
This means that nowadays, a time of pandemic imagery, it is entirely necessary to shift
the reading of one or several pictures from the binomial beautiful/ugly or like/dislike far
beyond the speeches of "technical irreprehensible," "time frozen" and "a historical
documentation of reality."
Because photography is all of the above, it is a tautology. Time to wonder then ' what
can we read in a photography?'. If the image inscribes itself in the imagination and it
leads us not only by intuition but also by logic to the imagination. And in Berger's radial
notion of memory ( quite different from a historical and linear overview ), the reading of
an image should enhance a visual motivation to discuss, to associate, to write about and
to present proposals in the context and language of pictures, and obviously to continue
to tell stories.

2 - Mexican Standoff
Consequently, this image could, in fact, summon the picturesque, the humorous, a
memory of an ancient time, far away which always falls under the illusion of 'quand il
etit beau' as if the past was a black-and-white film with a happy ending. Quite the
opposite. This picture was taken possibly between 1910 and 1920 brings to our mind all
the complexities of the Mexican standoff theory.
A Mexican standoff can be defined as a confrontation between three opponents, and the
outcome is determined by two possible causes: one, external and undetermined ( and
thus unpredictable); the other, internal moving in the triangular space - the decision
from one of the opponents to annihilate another will allow the third party to obliterate
the first; and therefore to win. It qualifies as a standoff because nobody wants to make
the first move in an opposite logic of modern times: the first entrepreneur will be the
last one to be defeated. Due to such formal and symbolic complexity, several theories
surround the Mexican standoff: it has been written that it is a kind of tactical
glorification of laziness - in a Mexican standoff, laziness is an asset.
Movies more than photography have been a fertile ground for Mexican standoffs. Some
memorable ones are a part of the history of cinema, for example, those shot in Sam
Peckinpah's Straw Dogs (1971), in the Wachowski sisters (former brothers) The Matrix
Revolution ( 2003) and Martin McDonagh's Seven Psychopaths (2012). Of course, it is
not possible to speak of Mexican standoffs without mentioning Tarantino's meta-
standoffs in Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994 - "everybody cool, this is a
robbery") and Inglorious Bastards (2009) a triptych which is by itself a Mexican
standoff. Finally, the biggest of the standoffs opposing Tuco, Blondie and Angel Eyes in
Sergio Leones Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo.

3- Imaginary

Back to the photographic image, we have before us a staged Mexican standoff. And this
time in Guimares, in the photograph. The theatrical and cinematic side of this picture,
by its staged nature, allows a staging to overlap the performance per se. This way it is
safe to say that the gentlemen depicted play in order of appearance the parts of Joo
Reguila, Carlos Pequeno, and Augusto Macabro: all characters in the play Rapto na Rua
de Gatos (' Kidnap in Cat Street'). Undoubtedly, the actors are playing a Mexican
standoff; even if in this case it is "imperfect" because Carlos Pequeno is not holding the
baton. An absence which does not imply he cannot win the conflict by the sheer fact that
this is the precise definition of Mexican standoff, where the initiative more than the lack
of armament is half way to the defeat.
We Know little about the three agents of this standoff: lvaro Dyke, born in Lisbon of
English descendant, came to Guimares at the beginning of 1910. He was a stage
director and an actor. He is also the author of the play which originated this picture.
Alcino, who was at this time a travelling merchant, moved to Timor and was never
heard of. Berto was a firefighter who seldom left the city and affirmed all the time he
neednt know the world because Guimares was enough for him. He was greatly
cherished by everyone. Finally, this picture would be used as the play's poster staged by
the Academia Problemtica de Guimares, which, despite being considered extinct since
1888, is still active as those who think and imagine the city are well aware.

4 - Corollary: a triple stage

Every picture takes a stand. That is why we should question its role as a document. In
this particular case, the portrait of a staging becomes a second performance; and due to
these words, turn into a third one. To write about this image is no more than a third act
of something that has happened but not quite the way we perceive it. So three stages; as
many as the elements on a Mexican standoff.