Extremely different reactions to "La Sapienza" reflect differences in temperament. Negative criticism tends to remark the film's arty pretension, lack of plot, and pointlessness. It is easy to see why someone might react in this way, because Eugene Green's movies are different from everything else on offer, including so-called art-house films. To say that his characters do not talk as real people talk is exactly right, given that Green's characters speak in the declamatory Baroque style, a style which he has been teaching these past forty years. This mode of speech is so far removed from our daily discourse that it sounds like it comes from Mars. And that's the intention. It forces one to pay attention. It takes time and patience to get used to such talk, but after a little, the unusual diction begins to make sense: it fits Green's symmetrical compositions of objects in space and the stillness that permeates all his films.
As to pretentiousness, no. Green is, if anything, modest in his insistence that there is another way, albeit one that appears wildly impractical in our materialistic present. True, his characters incarnate types that reflect ideas which he has been developing, especially since 2001, in print and on film. True, to embody an idea is to be a bit odd. Certainly this approach takes us off the beaten track. However, for those of a particular temperament, that's all to the good.
It is not the fault of an English-speaking audience, when they are unfamiliar with Green's ideas. He writes in French, as did Julian Green and Samuel Beckett. However, unlike these latter two, his books have yet to be translated from French into English.
Meanwhile, Green's movies aim for evocation. There are no car chases, no shootouts, no femme fatales, no sound-bite dialogues, no CGI, no enhanced sounds, all of which can be entertaining. Instead, there is a universe of the imagination and a particular sensibility that would have us put down our smart phones for a long moment, take a deep breath, look around, and 'regard' (recall that this word comes from French and there lies its meaning) the person sitting across from us. That is to say, to be in the moment, not becoming, but being. After all, 'becoming' will take care of itself. Being, on the other hand, is sometimes missed altogether.