The subject of Tyler Bastians short documentary film Everything is Incredible is Agustin: a 60-something man in Siguatepeque, Honduras, who has devoted the past 50 years to building a helicopter from scratch. Constrained in life by poverty and polio, Agustin has never seen a functioning helicopter up close; the inspiration for his project came from a magazine photo of a helicopter that captured his imagination as a teenager. After a half-century of effort, Agustin has achieved what he considers his final design, although you can see it looks like a caricature of a helicopter, he tells us. At the opening of the film, he acknowledges: Strictly speaking for everyone its been a cause for mockery because the whole world thinks it is impossible. That Im just crazy.

 

There are many ways to view Everything is Incredible, and one of them is with sincere respect for Agustins technological achievement. His helicopter does, in fact, resemble a caricature of a Hiller or Bell 47, and it does not appear to be in danger of becoming airborne anytime soon. But it also incorporates working mechanisms such as a rotating universal joint that are genuinely impressive when one realizes they were fabricated from parts scavenged at trash dumps, by a disabled shoemaker with little formal education and no reference to actual helicopter designs.

Yet few people are likely to view Everything is Incredible as a technological documentary. Since the film went viral on Vimeo.com, it has been praised, instead, as a complex meditation on the things that inspire us and give our lives meaning which is closer to what the filmmaker intended.

Its a complicated story, Bastian told Vertical in a recent phone interview. My goal as a filmmaker was really walking a fine line. . . . I didnt want people to walk away thinking What a Don Quixote; what an idiot. Its not easy to judge who he is or what hes done.

Bastian met Agustin just ran into him, really when he was living in Honduras as a young man from 1996 to 1998. Although Bastian returned to the United States, eventually becoming a high school teacher, he didnt forget Agustin or his story; 10 years later, he had raised enough money to begin the filmmaking process. Along with his friends Trevor Hill and Tim Skousen, Bastian filmed Everything is Incredible over four low-budget trips beginning in 2007 (additional footage is contained in a longer version of the film, Rise, which is not on Vimeo but is available for purchase at http://theriseinstitute.com). The documentary is currently making the film festival rounds, in addition to having garnered more than 250,000 views on Vimeo.

Everything is Incredible tells Agustins story through interviews with Agustin and others; their commentary is woven through shots that linger on the streets of Siguatepeque and, of course, on the helicopter itself. The other people in the film are never explicitly identified (according to Bastian, most of them are relatives of Agustin, with the obvious exception of a Catholic priest). This anonymity is by design. All of those characters in the film could have been all of us at different points in our lives, Bastian explained, referring to the characters varying takes on Agustin and the value of his lifes work. With its themes of adversity, doubt, faith and perseverance, Agustins story really is just a story about what all of us go through, Bastian said.

Not all viewers see value in Agustins experience: one Vimeo commenter described it as just sad. However, most people who have given Bastian feedback have been overwhelmingly positive about the film and sympathetic to Agustins plight. More than a few have suggested a fundraising campaign to give Agustin a ride in a real helicopter, but according to Bastian, its not clear that this is what Agustin actually wants.

Theres always been a debate among the filmmakers: should we take him up in a helicopter or should we not? Bastian said. Every time I speak about [the film] the debate comes up. Because Agustin has not expressed a desire for a helicopter ride, opinions are split on whether it would be the realization of a lifelong dream, or irrelevant to the actual role that the helicopter has served in his life. As Bastian observes in Rise, the longer version of the film: I think in his mind hes flying every day.

Consequently, while Bastian has initiated a fundraising campaign to benefit Agustin, its goal is not to give him a helicopter ride. Rather, it seeks to provide him with additional money for health and living expenses, and to purchase his helicopter in trust to ensure that it is not destroyed after his death. (According to Bastian, while Agustin is indifferent to a ride in someone elses helicopter, he has expressed a definite wish that his own helicopter be preserved.) People who are interested in contributing can find more information at http://www.indiegogo.com/everythingisincredible. 

In Rise, Bastian elaborates a bit more on why Agustin, with all of his physical and socioeconomic disadvantages, chose to persevere with a project that most people would deem impossible. According to Bastian, Agustin wanted his life to be defined by a positive problem not by poverty or polio. In Agustins words: I chose to build a helicopter because I wanted to choose my problems. One will always have problems, but so few people choose their own problems. They just take whatever problems come their way, the problems off the street. I chose this to be my problem in life: building this helicopter.