Megalopolis will no doubt be among the most polarising films of this year. Loosely inspired by the Ancient Roman Catilinarian conspiracy, it tells the story of an architect seeking to rebuild a metropolis, New Rome, according to a utopian plan while coming up against a corrupt mayor who wants to conserve the status quo.

More, pertinent, though, is the man behind the film. Francis Ford Coppola reportedly poured $120 million of his own money into this science-fiction epic, a passion project that was 40 years in the making. At the Cannes Film Festival this week, Megalopolis received the customary several-minute-long applause, but was also subject to significant booing. Critical reviews have been similarly divisive: the Guardian called it “a bloated, boring and bafflingly shallow film”, while IndieWire hailed it as a “transcendently sincere manifesto about the role of an artist at the end of an empire”.

Megalopolis can be fully judged by the masses when it has a wider release, yet the root of critics’ early disdain seems to be that it is too eccentric and too expensive. After all, it’s easier to call a mega-budget movie self-indulgent or ill-disciplined.