“Inception” takes one of the most fascinating components of the human mind, dreams, to create a powerful love story and a sensational heist movie. The director, Christopher Nolan, responsible for the reinvention of Batman, is playing on a level Hollywood rarely sees, combining intellectual stimulation with breathtaking visual artistry.

The story, which, from the trailers alone, is a complete mystery, concerns a man named Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) who specializes in a form of security that requires invading a person’s dreams to steal ideas for major corporations. Often, these ideas present themselves in the form of files locked away in safes as sort of a literal interpretation by the mind of a certain thought. Cobb has help from his partner Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), as well as an architect, later played by Ellen Page after a messy encounter with the first architect. While on a job to steal ideas from a powerful businessman named Saito (Ken Watanabe), they are instructed of a plan that would involve not the extraction of an idea, but what’s called an inception. This involves planting an idea into an individuals mind while making it seem like the idea developed naturally. There are complications, as Cobb has haunting memories of his deceased wife, Mal (Marion Cotillard). He cannot rid Mal from his subconscious, which threatens to destroy the mission as well as his sanity.

Much more could be said about the plot, but I wouldn’t dare ruin it for anyone, not that I could explain all of its layers and complexities if I tried. This is a film that simply must be seen. If you are curious about it, you cannot possibly gather a good enough description of the events to piece it together without having witnessed it for yourself. There are individual moments of amazing visual sights, such as when a city folds upon itself, creating a cube that the characters can walk around, and especially a scene involving a gun fight with zero gravity, as characters float and free fall through a hotel hallway.

However, this is not the visually transporting experience of “Avatar,” but a different beast, with a story so complex it requires audience participation at every step. The screenplay brilliantly weaves between so many layers it seems impossible that Nolan could have found a way to make it comprehensible, but he does, as long as you’re willing to put in a little work. These are not just dreams he’s dealing with, but dreams within dreams, and even dreams within dreams within dreams. The film goes so far into the subconscious of his characters that it can be difficult to decipher what is real and what is not. But there in lies the greatness of Nolan’s vision. In a film about ideas, we should have our own, and the ending leaves plenty of interpretation on the audience’s part as to what it all means. On top of that, “Inception” is just pure movie craftsmanship. Rarely have I seen such a sure-handed command of all aspects of filmmaking, from the performances to the script, the editing and music. This is one of the best films in years, and a reminder of why we still go to the movies.