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Sometimes a pretentious film can baffle critics into a positive review because they believe that saying they don't understand a film will undermine their credibility as an arbitrarily appointed expert.
This harkens back to the post-war era, when everything that was new was rejected because the it did not fit into the status-qua of the previous century - where the establishment of the time originated.
Very soon after, when the same film makers, writers, artists and musicians gained enormous popularity and were designated geniuses, the critics adjusted their position on work they did not quite comprehend.
Since then, when they see an art film they don't understand, they prefer to opine in the positive rather than clack out the death knell for a critic's omniscient status: that being the phrase, "I don't know."
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