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“It’s too dark in there, I can’t see the end” the hero of Mou Tun-fei’s The End of the Track (跑道終點, Pǎodào Zhōngdiǎn) complains though in the end he’ll find himself venturing into the darkness all alone. Like many of his contemporaries, Mou had come to Taiwan from the Mainland as a child during the Chinese Civil War but eventually made only two features on the island spending the bulk of his career working in exploitation cinema for Shaw Brothers in Hong Kong. The second of his two Taiwanese movies neither of which were ever given a mainstream release, The End of the Track continues in the broadly Neo-realist vein of I Didn’t Dare to Tell You while venturing towards the expressionistic in its innovative use of rhythmic editing and sound design to mimic the hero’s sense of confusion and anxiety in an oppressively authoritarian society.
A middle-class boy, Hsiao-Tung (Chen Da-Wei) is best friends with Yung-Sheng (Tsai Tu-Chuen) whose parents operate a small noodle cart. Despite the class disparity between them, the boys are inseparable spending their time skinny-dipping at local beaches, play fighting, or exploring a disused mine they regard as their place joking about the possibilities of hidden gold. Tragedy strikes however when Hsiao-Tung gets bad vibes about venturing into the mine and suggests they head back to school to engage in a mutual “race”, he with his abacus and Yung-Sheng on the track. Shortly after Hsiao-Tung brings up the fact another boy has called them “queer” which they both laugh off with an intention to beat him up they later think better of because of his pimples, Yung-Sheng begins to tire but thanks to Hsiao-Tung’s encouragement continues to run until finally collapsing in his arms and thereafter passing away.
The homoerotic undertones of the intense friendship between the two boys have been posited as a possible reason the film was not passed for release, and there is certainly something in the fact that Yung-Sheng dies seconds after the word “queer” is uttered though the underlying subtext seems to be bound up more with their class disparity than with the repression of their latent sexual desire. Academically gifted and from a middle-class family, Hsiao-Tung seems primed for conventional success in a rapidly developing economy while Yung-Sheng whose potential lies in his physicality will most likely be left behind. Hsiao-Tung’s attempt to push him beyond his limit eventually leads to his death in his inability to outrun the restrictions placed on him by his society. The two boys have been on different tracks all along, their paths set to diverge even as they fight desperately to maintain their friendship.
In the depths of his guilt feeling that he hastened Yung-Sheng towards his death in failing to recognise his distress, Hsiao-Tung attempts to atone by helping out at his parents’ noodle stand hoping to make his dream of opening a physical store a reality. Yet while his efforts eventually earn him acceptance from the Lees, the conclusion he comes to is that he cannot take his friend’s place or exchange his life for Yung-Sheng’s. He cannot change “track” to become a noodle stall owner’s son, but neither can he reconcile himself to the petty conservatism that defines the lives of his respectable middle-class parents, angrily throwing back at them the instructions given to children in order to become “model citizens” that they should work hard and mind their own business as his father berates him for his bad grades encouraging him to prioritise himself before others so that he might be of more use to society in the future. Hsiao-Tung finds himself bitterly remarking that Yung-Sheng’s death was then his own fault, reacting to the selfish individualism of an authoritarian society which tells him that his intense grief for his friend is wrong and that care and compassion for others is an inappropriate waste of potential.
Continuing to visit his friend’s grave, Hsiao-Tung remains lost recalling the many conversations they had in which they were torn in their relationships with their parents feeling as if they ought to obey but also that there were times they desired their own freedom. “Everything is so changeable” he complains, “what’s right and wrong in this world all depends on the time, place and people.” He tells us that he doesn’t want to figure it out anyway, but claims to know now what’s going on coming to an understanding of himself as he re-contemplates the cave less afraid to face the darkness of adulthood as he ventures forth all alone in search of an ending.
The End of the Track streamed as part of Electric Shadows.
Windows on Worlds 
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