danmusikat The image of hipster Jarmusch and Old-School Fuller wandering around like 2 characters in search of an epiphany was wacky enough. Place them in the middle of a Karaja village, with the amazing back-story of Fuller's flirtation with a jungle epic-that-never-was, and you've got a great little documentary that surpasses expectations--if in fact you had any. It's true that Jarmusch is absurdly out of place here, but that only ads to the surrealistic bent of the thing. And Fuller, a physical midget next to Jarmusch, is the one who is truly larger than life; a throwback to a time when directors truly dreamed and took action--the sort of character that Hollywood, in its increasing dependence on CGI, has conveniently squelched. We get to see a maverick, a dreamer, an egotist and a great observer of life in its myriad forms, who clearly loved every second of his time on this earth. The film is somewhat hampered by a lack of what a script man would call structure. And yet that didn't bother me because it was like watching a human circus unfolding: Here a Karaja ritual; there, Fuller fulminating about what coulda been, and everywhere around the amazing Mato Grosso, the real star of the story. Okay, it's no Aguirre, but if you love the process of film in its purest form, this is a terrific little flick.

FilmCriticLalitRao It is true that offbeat documentary film "Tigrero: A Film That Was Never Made" has its own intrinsic star value featuring maverick American independent cinema artists Samuel Fuller and Jim Jarmusch but the real stars of this charming film within a film tale are "The Karaja",native people from Brazil.In many ways this documentary by Finnish cinema author Mika Kaurismaki is an amazing journey into heart, minds and souls of Karaja people who teach viewers a humble lesson of humanity.We get to learn that even though they are close to human civilization,it is normal for them to maintain their distance from modern people.This is a unique quality which has found many admirers especially people like Samuel Fuller and Jim Jarmusch who make good friends with Karaja people."Tigrero: A Film That Was Never Made" is also a film with serious purpose as its protagonists arrive in style to explore new facets in film making.Each of them have their own agendas: Jim Jarmusch with his ubiquitous video camera and Samuel Fuller with his charming cigar.As Mika Kaurismaki has made a film oozing with emotional attachment related to true love for cinema,one has to really feel the sadness with which Samuel Fuller narrates how his unfinished film "Tigrero" with big names of Hollywood cinema John Wayne,Ava Gardner and Tyrone Power could not be made due to malicious attitude of American insurance companies.One has to pay attention to each word uttered by Samuel Fuller,a legendary director whose genius could not be appreciated by many in Hollywood.It is true that Samuel Fuller's widow Christa Lang gave the idea for making "Tigrero: A Film That Was Never Made" but Mika Kaurosmakin must be congratulated for making a great film as his approach is humanist in nature as his film is an honest vision of a genius who should have been properly recognized by Hollywood and American film industry.

chaos-rampant Much like their fiction counterparts, documentaries rise and fall with their subject matter. If they are to be successful they must have a story worth telling. This one doesn't. In fact it wouldn't have been made to begin with if Sam Fuller wasn't such a cult icon for these two guys here, Jarmusch and Kaurismaki. In 1955 Sam Fuller was sent to the Matto Grosso jungle in Brazil by Zanuck of 20th Century Fox to gather material for an exotic adventure about an escaped convict woman, her husband and a bounty-hunter, the titular Tigrero. Wayne and Gardner were supposed to star, the film fell apart, apparently no insurance company was willing to take the risk of Wayne and Gardner shooting on location; but not before Fuller managed to shoot footage of the Indian tribe on 16mm. The footage, along with the script Fuller had prepared, languished for nearly 40 years. Fuller returned to the Indian tribe he once filmed, this time with Jim Jarmusch and Mika Kaurismäki, to shoot a documentary on a film that was never made.The major problem of Tigrero is that it is aimless and flaccid. It starts as a humorous travelogue of sorts then digresses in the traditions and customs of the Indian tribe which is only tangential at best and then finally arrives at what the box promised: anecdotal material provided by Fuller himself about the film. Fuller is such an interesting and lively character that he can almost sustain the film by himself, even when his stories are little more than small tidbits. On the other hand, his interviewer, Jarmusch, comes off as a self-conscious, humorless hipster, walking around the huts of the village in his cool Ramones tshirt and Rayban shades. Mika Kaurismäki's direction is average at best, mostly because he seems completely unprepared. There's no angle to the story to hook you with. Fuller's first travel through the Brazilian jungle, carrying with him a 16mm camera, film stock, a box of cigars and a Beretta, an adventure more interesting than the lurid, melodramatic subject of the movie he was supposed to be researching, isn't given its proper due. It's no wonder then that the most captivating scene in the movie, and the one that achieves any kind of emotional leverage, involves the indians watching the footage of their ancestors 40 years later.

jon-510 I somewhat agree with the comments about the scripted components, but I don't think they really do any damage to the film.This docco has a lot of range, its tear jerkingly poignant in places, downright hilarious in others, and just astounding in others. The chief witchdoctors doing their elaborate ritual, fainly chanting 'Hollywood... Hollywood...' is a really transporting moment.The film definitely causes one to wonder about the future of the natives, whether they will go on as they have in their idyllic little universe.Strange thing is - I'm not actually that much of a Jim Jarmusch fan (yes I know he didn't direct this film but he would have had a lot of input), except for Dead Man which is a masterpiece. But this is a little gem.I recommend this film, its cute and beautiful.