Three variations on the theme of the relationship between the military and power in Portagal in the Twentyth century. Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho talks of the long march that brought him to the movement of the captains - from the colonial war to the coup d'état of April 25, 1974 to the crisis that destroyed the unity of the armed forces and brought on the end of the revolution in November, 1975. A professor (Eduardo Lourenço) analyzes this descent of the military from the "non-political" havens to very revolutionary politics. Like in a detective moie, an American reporter (Robert Kramer) tries to put his finger on the ones guilty for the failure of the April revolution. Finished onIy in 1982, Gestos e fragmentos is the film epitaph of thc Portuguese revolution.