INSTEP Magzine

Australia is a whopping 165 minutes long. That means two hours and forty five minutes, for those of you weak in mathematics. That also means several days of prolonged viewing for those of you who have the attention span of a normal person. And though Australia is awfully long for a western film, it is even lengthier than your average Indian film. But then even some Bollywood filmmakers are great at breaking records as far as the duration of a picture goes. Baz Luhrmann could sure enough be nick named 'Sanju', short for Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Bollywood master of long and tedious films. How can we forget Saawariya (142 mins), Black (122 mins) and Devdas at a record breaking 182 minutes?
Devdas was actually cut down to 165 minutes especially for the Cannes Film Festival but reportedly the audience couldn't stay awake even during that. Sitting through films such as Devdas was thereon referred to as 'Sleeping Duty'.

2. Heroic makeover
Remember the blockbuster Satte Pe Satta, the Amitabh Bachchan- Hema Malini starrer inspired by Seven Brides for Seven Brothers? If you've seen the film then you will remember the absolute scruff Amitabh was and how he appears all clean shaven and handsome in a dapper tuxedo to win his lady love's heart at a wedding. Australia has a scene that gives one deja vu when Hugh turns up at a county ball; spanking clean after being un-showered and un-shaven for weeks on end (look right to know what we mean). 'Dilbar meray, kab tak mujhe aisay hee tarpao gay' plays in the mind as Jacky makes his grand entry and Nicole stares at him in jaw dropped awe.

3. Rain dance

How can we forget the rain sequence, so essential in every typical Indian movie and so utterly unexpected in one like Australia? But after the Ball, when Darwin's gentry is utterly scandalized by the newly widowed Lady Ashley doing the fox trot with Drover, it begins to rain heavily and the lovebirds make most of the celebratory down pour by throwing caution to the wind and making an absolute spectacle of themselves. Nicole may not be wearing a chiffon sari but her skin tight gown is as revealing and just as sensational as any that Kareena Kapoor or Zeenat Aman would have dared to wear. '...Mausam mastana, rasta anjaana...'

4. United we sing
Australia may not be a musical but it is (almost) musical enough to qualify as one. It is Nicole Kidman's version of 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' (originally sung by Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz) that helps Nullah, the Aboriginal child go to sleep after his mother dies. It is when Nullah plays the same tune on his harmonica far away on a distant boat that Nicole realizes he is still alive after the Japs have bombed the mission and all children are assumed dead. If songs have united lost siblings, friends and even civilisations in films like Yaadon Ki Baaraat, Meri Jung and countless others, then they unite this small family in Australia too. In fact music magic is taken a level higher in Australia as the Aboriginal chants are shown to control wild animals in a dangerous stampede. Just imagine what Rajesh Khanna could have done if his songs had that effect on his heroines!

5. All is well that ends well

No matter what a Bollywood family goes through and it is often met with conspiracy, sudden poverty, sudden terminal illness, rape and financial fraud or simply unwilling parents and the whole 'nahin, yeh shadi nahin ho sakti', one can rest assure that things will sort themselves out by the end. The dispensable may perish (as they do in Australia as well) but the protagonists, namely the hero, heroine and their child can meet no harm. A bomb explodes in Nicole Kidman's face and the office she works at is caught in a raging fire.

She survives.Nullah is gunned down by low flying Japanese war planes. He survives. And though the city of Darwin is reduced to ruins, they all find each other. It's an ending fit for any Bollywood masala flick!

- Aamna Haider Isani