Dinesh Kamath's column on film 'Makkhi' that was published in Newsband

Revenge and reincarnation, two of Bollywood's most successful themes, are at the forefront in SS Rajamouli's film, Makkhi, the revenge story of a super fly. In the film, the protagonist, played by Navin Babu, gets killed only to be reborn as a fly to avenge his death and save the love of his life.

Films can be divided primarily into two genres — those with innovative ideas and those with raw emotions. The uniqueness of Makkhi is that it has both. The idea is insanely innovative (the lead character is a 'housefly') and the basic emotion is the rawest of all: 'revenge'." Apart from a gripping storyline, Makkhi also features a special song, where the housefly mimics Bollywood actors Ajay Devgn, Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar and Hrithik Roshan.

Led by the vision of SS Rajamouli and D Suresh Babu, the film has become a huge success in Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam.

The following comments about Makkhi were passed by prominent members of Bollywood:

Rajkumar Hirani: "I'm completely amazed by Makkhi — scripting, performances, soundtrack and the way it's been shot. I was completely entertained throughout the film."

Shah Rukh Khan: "Awesomely original and fun film by Rajamouli. Must watch with kids."

Ajay Devgn (who's lent his voice to the movie): "Hats off to Rajamouli for his out-of-the-box thinking; and making the film with such finesse and conviction, its success is there for us to see."

Makkhi, released in Hindi by Reliance Entertainment, got released on 12 October 2012.

In Makkhi, a sequence towards the end credits is added where flies would be seen imitating a popular Salman Khan dance move with a towel.

Makkhi, as I told you earlier, traces the life of a man reborn as a fly to avenge his death and protect his girlfriend. This film is packed with some heavy-duty world-class animation, Indian animation industry will see a huge change from hereafter.

In Makkhi, 99 percent animation is done by Indian artists and that too all the animators are below 25-26 years except for one or two. The film has attracted so much praise. Everyone's lapping up and raving about it. The makers of the film had to spend a lot of time to design animation for the character 'Makkhi'. The biggest challenge was to give expressions to a makkhi through animation. It took close to 6-7 months in doing the animation of Makkhi.

Makkhi scores simply because someone had the brainwave to think of a film from a house fly’s perspective. SS Rajamouli’s hugely successful ‘Eega’ is served in a dubbed version as ‘Makkhi’. While the title may make your squirm in disgust, you are in for a surprise when you start watching the film.

I’ll tell you the exact story of Makkhi. The story is a basic revenge saga. Jaani (Nani) a good-for-nothing fella’ is in love with micro artist Bindu (Samantha Ruth). While Bindu harbours feelings for Jaani, she shies away from expressing it. Meanwhile, business tycoon Sudeep (Kannada film star Sudeep) is in love with Bindu and when he finds out about Bindu’s love for Jaani, he murders him. Jaani is reborn as, not a human (like all typical rebirth story) but as a house fly. The revenge of Jaani’s death is then taken by his reincarnate version and story is of how the little obscure fly manages to make Sudeep’s life miserable and convince Bindu that her lost love has come back. Being, the lead protagonist, the fly is your quintessential lover who will fight till the end and protect his girl from the lascivious advances of the villain.

Thus the film narrates a hilarious tale of a how a reincarnated housefly envisages to seek revenge and protects a human from another human. The moments where the antagonist is tormented by a fly to such an extent that he insists on sleeping with an insect repellant in one hand makes for a good laugh.

Kannada superstar Sudeep plays the role of the villain to perfection who is almost driven to insanity by the fly. The story of Makkhi is indeed appealing.

The film has some brilliant animation which has the ability to think from a housefly’s perspective. The first few scenes when Jaani reincarnates himself and reborn as a fly and discovers the world and surrounding around him is simply brilliant. Everything, including a small little tennis ball seems magnified because we get to look at a world from a fly’s perspective.

The film also pays homage to Rajnikanth and infuses his dialogues from the film Sivaji as an introduction to the fly. With some heavy dose of violence in the climax and dollops of comedy in most part of the film, the film manages to thrill the adults and the kids alike. Watch Makkhi for its uniqueness.

Top film critic Taran Adarsh rated the movie a handsome 4 stars and showering rich praise on the filmmaker.

“A technical wonder, the computer generated fly is, without doubt, the star of the show. And its creator, Rajamouli, a sheer genius for creating a film that sweeps you off your feet and leaves you awe-struck. On the whole, Makkhi is a landmark film. You ought to watch certain films in your lifetime. Makkhi is one of those films. For choosing a crackling idea, for executing it with panache and for taking Indian cinema to the next level, I doff my hat to you, Mr. S.S. Rajamouli,” wrote Taran.

Rajamouli’s father is a writer and he wrote the screenplay for all his films. Rajmouli heard the story 16 years ago from him about a fly who comes back to take revenge. At that time, he wasn't even an assistant director. When he started making films, he stuck to the formula films which did well at the box-office. After a while, he wanted to experiment with something completely different. He wanted to take the audience by surprise and that is when he went back to the story he had heard 16 years ago.

Actually it was lot of fun. When Rajmouli started out, he wanted to make a small budget film which would appeal to all ages. But his producer asked him not to worry about the production costs and make a good film. Once that burden was lifted from his head, he started with story boarding. The new challenge this time was the animation. He had no prior experience in that field. The VFX was done by a company called Mokuta in Hyderabad and only one or two key sequences (like the sparrow chasing the fly) done in Russia. He was happy with the work done by the 25-year-olds at Mokuta.

Actually, the first copy of the Hindi dubbing was ready before the Tamil and the Malayalam version. The makers of Makkhi delayed the release of the film since they wouldn't have been able to do justice to the film as it was difficult to market a film in different languages at the same time.

The most difficult scene was the one where Makkhi is telling Bindu he is Jani, her lover. The girl had to know that her lover was killed by the person she holds in high esteem. And she had to emote while looking at the fly. What made the scene stand out was the background score. It was the string between the pearls and that is what made the final scene really emotional.

Thus Makkhi is a great and unique film. Do watch it.