AFAIK it was more like tons of symbolism to hide a lack of budget and time. It got janky and weird because they literally weren't given the resources to finish it properly. But then they were also trying to be weird and obtuse in general as an aesthetic, to the point where there really couldn't be a satisfying and comprehensible ending because you can't explain what was going on because that ruins the whole baffling mysticism feel and you can't just sort of resolve the tangible material conflicts without addressing all the weird mystic shit either, so instead they just went off the deep end and made completely incomprehensible nonsense with a shoestring budget and became iconic for it, so they just leaned into it even harder when they were given the resources to do more.