appreciating his calm and nurturing manner, she finds no excitement in the relationship. Simon initially attempts to pitch another feature film, this time an dystopian science fiction story about man's future. He chooses instead to make his earlier autobiographical tale, complete with reenacting events of his life previously depicted - his youthful thefts, his porn career, etc. There are two more near-meets between Simon and Sarah during this time, once at the restaurant as they both dine there unaware of each other, and later at the Deauville beach, where Sarah has gone to reassess her priorities and Simon tries to rethink the ending to his film. In the latter encounter, while they do not meet, he crosses paths with her dog, which inspires him to write a happy ending for his movie. The new film is well-received and Simon is interviewed on TV, which Sarah watches with interest. At the climax, Sarah tells her lover she is leaving him, tired of the boring stability they have experienced. She intends to go to New York City to raise money for Israel. Her lover accompanies her to the airport. Simultaneously, Simon is also heading for New York as well, feeling he needs a change of scenery to get ideas for his next film. They arrive at the departure desk one after the other, their luggage is tagged at the same time, and their seats are next to each other. When they are offered coffee, Simon asks for three sugars, Sarah takes note of it, and they initiate conversation. In a sequence cut from the American release version (but retained on the first U.S. DVD from Image Entertainment), the dystopian future story that Simon had been contemplating is dramatized at length, as he tells it to Sarah. The film ends with their respective bags on top of each other on a conveyor belt, as if making love. According to film historian John Kirk, an earlier French release version of the film ended with the plane carrying Sarah and Simon crashing soon after their meeting. The idea behind this stark finish was that since the film has depicted their entire lives, and their mutual destiny to meet each other as soul mates, the natural ending should be to then depict their lives ending since that task has been completed. Production Lelouch used the principle of Simultaneous Bilingual Film Production in making this film: for