Slightly OT: The word 'pretentious' should be banned.

I'm sick of people trying to tell me what words I can and cannot use.
This movie was/is pretentious. I have no problem with the artsy stuff (heck, I'm a fan of Peter Greenaway's movies), but the exploration of the main character's life meanders through his childhood, teen years and early adult life but then abruptly jumps over the next 70+ years as if they were/are inconsequential. In the context of the film, the main character's life ends at age 34. The events that have preoccupied his span on Earth are his romances. Even his relationship with his children exists only as a backdrop for his relationship problems with his wife.
Don't get me wrong. The movie was interesting and better than most of the dreck out there, but it was still fairly pretentious. The word means attempting to impress by affecting greater importance than is actually possessed. I somehow think discounting everything else from more than a century of life except the character's youthful romantic heartaches just might qualify as somewhat pretentious.

I agree. I'd also like to see Cliche go away on the boards in general. And off topic "Not so Much". Anything overused is just annoying.

We live by the Sun, we feel by the Moon

I think it's pretentious to assume that anyone who doesn't like the same movie you like, must be an American Pie watching moron.

Edit: I realized I had more to say after I hastily responded to this. There are two types of thought provoking films, good ones and bad ones. It is both judgmental and inappropriate to assume that if someone dislikes a bad thought provoking film, then they must dislike all thought provoking films. But to suggest that they also can only enjoy movies like American Pie, well that is the very definition of pretentiousness.

So much this.

Fun fact: the word "pretentious" is nearly always used pretentiously, including this reply itself.

I agree with some; 'pretentious' is difficult to interpret because most movies are completely artificial and constructed, therefore they are all a show of pretence :). What exactly one disliked should perhaps be articulated differently...

All this is just a perception issue which no one can escape from. Everyone's experience is true for them -
Some perceive a movie as pretentious. Others perceive it as something else.
Some perceive the people talking about a movie in a pretentious manner. Others perceive the same people otherwise.

What do people really experience when they call it 'pretentious' ? Admitting to a movie experience which you equal to 'pretentious' will be an admission of how you judged yourSELF; how you judged your own individual experience. The odd question therein is whether it is the movie that is 'limited' or whether it is you who are unable to connect with the movie?...

It's usually the viewers who are pretentious. Do you think you're better and more intelligent then other people based on the films you watch and the books you read? Do you watch arthousey films and hate action-blockbusters because they're "too dumb" and "for the masses. People who think like this are, in fact, pretentious.