2046's deleted scenes #1: 'M. Chow quitte 2046'

In this new series of blog entries I want to describe and comment on the various deleted scenes from 2004's '2046'. When I pondered on how to begin this series, I eventually thought to myself: "Why not start at the very end?" So here it is, the alternate ending of 2046. This scene appears on the US DVD by Sony as well as on the French DVD by TF1, albeit in two versions. Let's take a look at the US DVD first.

On the US DVD, the scene is called 'The writer visits the future bar'. There, the whole scene is completely silent. No music, no dialogue whatsoever. The scene consists of one single shot only. First, we see lights from the sci-fi train flash up. The camera pans from right to left, as an android walks into the frame in the same direction. We eventually see Chow from behind, sitting at the future bar, drinking and smoking. As he puts his glass down, he turns around, looking straight into the camera. After several seconds, the shot turns bright and cuts off.

 

On the French TF1 DVD, the scene is called 'M. Chow quitte 2046' ('Mister Chow leaves 2046'). It starts with a black screen. We hear Nat King Cole's 'Christmas Song' and Chow via voiceover: "One who goes to 2046 has only one intention: Recapturing lost memories. Because in 2046 nothing ever changes, they say." Then, the shot from the future bar begins, albeit a bit later than in the version on the US DVD. The android waiter has already entered the frame as the shot begins in the TF1 version. The music and Chow's voiceover continue:  "Nobody knows if that's the case, because no-one has ever come back." Chow turns around. "But me. I want to change." Chow takes a long stare into the camera. And without turning bright, the scene cuts to a zoom-in on the futuristic hole in the wall. Nat King Cole's song continues until the very end.

Let's discuss the scene as it appears on the French DVD. I guess the most apparent thing is the voiceover. It's the same voiceover that accompanies the final shot of the common theatrical version - except for a crucial change. While the theatrical version ends with "...because no-one has ever come back.", the deleted scene adds: "But me. I want to change." His statement is however contradicted by his very presence at the future bar. Maybe that's why he looks at the camera so intensively - so we can actually see his pain.
I have long suspected that the deleted scenes from the TF1 DVD stem from the unfinished version of 2046 which was presented at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004. An article by Tony Rayns from 'Sight and Sound' (2008, No. 18 no. 3) confirms this:

One recurrent voiceover heard in the Cannes version of 2046 had disappeared by the time the film reached release. That version opened and closed with the writer’s reflections on his own relationship with 2046, and the same words also popped up in the middle of the film. They went something like this: “Those who go to 2046 never come back. But I’m the exception. I went to 2046, and I have come back. Because I want to change …”
I once asked Wong Kar-wai why he had rewritten that voiceover, and he told me he did so because he thought the original was too obvious. What he meant, I think, was that his own relationship with his writer character too closely mirrored the writer’s relationship with his Japanese surrogate. He feared that audiences would take the voiceover as an autobiographical mission statement. 2046 felt like some kind of summation of Wong’s themes and motifs. This voiceover gave the whole thing an air of valediction; it suggested a director who was feeling an urgent need to move into entirely new areas. I was reminded of an earlier conversation with Wong in which he wryly commented, “Too many people are ‘doing’ Wong Kar-wai these days, so I have to do something else.”

So what do you think about this alternate ending? Tell me in the comments.