" You may have the impression that Portabella is an extreme, disrespectful, destructive filmaker; a punk filmaker. And, in a way, he is. Except for one thing. Messyness – something usually associated with punks but which is completely absent in his films. If Portabella is a punk filmaker, he is the most elegant of them all. He is the one who demonstrates, destructures and destroys firms, mechanisms and discourses while he frames with the mathematic virtuosity of Antonioni or Resnais, photographs with the violence of Glauber Rocha, edits with the revolutionary intelligence of Eisenstein and moves the camera with the sophisticated arrogance of Fellini. He is the one who can straighten his tie while he breaks cinema and the world into pieces. "