Saw Inception twice, and it’s quickly ascended well into the midst of my top 25 films list. Leonardo DiCaprio has always been an actor who has commanded my respect, and this latest film certainly earns him my highest favor — he’s a film star of the highest caliber, Romeo + Juliet aside. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page and Cillian Murphy all get to truly flex their muscles and stretch their capabilities as well. A lot of mature, atypical casting calls makes for a crew of characters that really shine in the light of one another’s presence.

The film easily solidifies Christopher Nolan as one of my top three all-time favorite directors — next to Spielberg, for Minority Report and War of the Worlds; and next to James Cameron, for Aliens, The Abyss, and Avatar. Not only did Nolan craft one of the most aesthetically beautiful films of all time, he also penned the script. Unlike, say, Avatar, however, this contemporary fantasy (with a small taste of cyberpunk, minus all the nuts and bolts explanation) shines not because of its visuals — although they are pretty stellar, to understate my impression — but rather because of its superb screenplay. Easily the best-written movie I’ve ever seen in terms of an intricate, logical, well-plotted storyline that is well-suited for its audiovisual medium. Truly brilliant.

Watching the film a second time, I analyzed virtually every aspect of the story and how it is constructed, and in addition to coming up with my own cyberpunk concept — one I hope to use to fill several short stories and eventually a full-length novel — while actually watching the inspirational movie, I also had an epiphany about good storytelling. Good art, literature, film all has three components in common: emotionally-triggered reader/viewer sympathy, gained through the use of appropriate in-story relationships to which the audience can relate; well-conceived, original, and logical interrelated ideas from which the story develops, which can be generated through inspiration, Orson Scott Card’s prescribed “question session,” and old-fashioned thinking/outlining; and most importantly, philosophical illumination — good stories have to blow your mind, at least in some slight-of-hand way. They have to change your life, if only for a few days. They have to penetrate your beliefs, shatter your perceptions of reality, and lead you to question your existence. Those stories have staying power; they last for decades, centuries — not the ones that were written purely based upon a lack of thought and cliches.

Art is powerful. It changes us. And it damn well should — that’s why it’s created in the first place, I’d argue. Sure, some of it’s good, some of its bad; some lasts with us for years, changing our lives, some of it is purely for entertainment and is laughably illogical. My point is good films, good books, and good works of art — video games, on occasion — carry a sense of philosophical questioning, a handful of ideas and observations about the world that have gone previously unnoticed. Those works an audience never forgets, and the artists among that audience are granted a better understanding of their own craft and a fair dosage of inspiration. At least, that’s what Inception did for me.