The first 45 minutes to an hour are amazing and completely hooked me. There is an air of mystery that increases and peaks with a tragic moment. But then for about half an hour, it becomes a completely different movie and loses me. The final act is very convential, though still scary in execution. The ending just undoes the mystery the first act established, leaving little room for a more ambiguous and dreamlike interpretation.

The finale and look of the film are great.

Paul Schrader got naked for a movie that is out of focus half the time

It’s not technically perfect, but it’s really the stuff of dreams. The potential of film and where it could go, and where other art forms can’t, is all here. 
I love the little sequence where the Astronomer is beating away a moon man with his umbrella, and he vanishes.