Rune Denstad Langlo
Nord

Before reading "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac, I hadn't understood anything about life. Specifically, I hadn't understood anything about my life. You know, I'm convinced that I haven't achieved anything good in my more or less short existence, but there was a time when I believed I was heading somewhere. I was stuck, certainly, yet in my head, I had developed the belief that sooner or later something would happen, and I would get to where I needed to be. The more this belief took root in me, the more my immobility and unshakable faith in what I can define as a kind of "divine justice" grew. Now it would be useless to lie to you, who, after all, don't care about this whole story: in truth, to this day, I haven't accomplished anything good. I still haven't set myself in motion, in fact, traveling is something that still scares me and gives me a certain anxiety that, believe me, is quite hard to shake off and even harder to admit to myself and explain to those around me, but at least thanks to Jack Kerouac, I have learned not to take myself (too much) for a fool. Things never happen because they must happen. If I want to change my life, one of these days I'll have to gather the few strengths I have left, get off the couch, and seriously get to work. Hit the road, on the path.

Have you ever given up something very important because you didn't even have the strength to stand up? Jomar Henriksen has. Once, he had a woman, a wife. He was a professional skier, someone who spent every day of his life on skis. Then something happened: he was bedridden by an accident and struggled to get back on his feet, fell into depression, and ultimately gave up on sports and life. At this point, since troubles never come alone and women are always very understanding and ready to stand by their men when they have some problems, and as has been a consolidated tradition for centuries, his wife leaves him for his best friend.
Four years later, Jomar Henriksen is a couch potato addicted to National Geographic Channel. He has a lousy job as a ski park guard, and between one session with the psychologist and another, he spends his days drinking alcohol, taking medication, and smoking some cigarettes. As we were saying, four years have passed since his wife left with his best friend, when Jomar finds out he is the father of a four-year-old child, who lives in the "North", in a small village in northern Norway, with the mother. Who then would be his ex-wife - Jomar's ex-wife indeed, but you should have figured that out by yourselves, I imagine. Wherever Jomar Henriksen goes, everything ends in flames, his life, if we can call it that, is going down the drain, and in the end, he decides to face his anxiety and fears and, riding his snowmobile with a load of alcohol and drugs, sets off for the north.

What do you know about Norway? I know little to nothing. It's a parliamentary monarchy. The capital is Oslo, which is also the largest and most populous city in the country. Norway is a country of fishermen, salmon, and cod, rich in energy resources with an area larger than Italy and a significantly lower population. In practice, about four or five million inhabitants. As for the rest, everything I know about Norway is simply "everything I know", the malicious would say - is related to soccer. The Italian national soccer team played against them in the 1994 World Cup in the USA - 1 to 0, a goal by Dinone Baggio in the second half of a match that went down in history for the substitution of Roberto Baggio following the expulsion of the Italian goalkeeper Gianluca Pagliuca for a disastrous rush out of the area on the Norwegian Leonhardsen - and at the 1998 French World Cup - always 1 to 0, a goal by Christian Vieri. The most representative players have been the giant Tore André Flo, also known as "Flonaldo", who also played in the Italian championship with Siena, and Ole Gunnar Solskjær, a legend for Manchester United fans who still recall his goal in the 1998-99 Champions League final against Bayern Munich (a final won 2 - 1 by the Red Devils with an incredible comeback in the final minutes). The Rosenborg, a soccer club based in the city of Trondheim, knocked AC Milan out of the Champions League in 1996-97. But, anyway, none of this stuff matters to anyone. In particular, all these soccer statistics have very little to do with the Norway of North (directed by the newcomer Rune Denstad Langlo), which in the end is nothing but a road movie on snow, a journey in a reality seemingly light-years away from the vast deserts of North America that so much American literature (and beyond) has accustomed us to. But on the other hand, let's be honest, isn't it true that the Giant Sand recorded some records in Denmark? How many of you could accurately define what a desert is? Don't we all carry a piece of the desert inside us? I say yes.

Jomar Henriksen's journey is a journey on a snowmobile through a Norwegian landscape made of endless white snowy expanses accompanied by a soundtrack of country music, all strictly made in Norway - there are even the International Tussler Society, who are practically the Motorpsycho (yes, them!) from Trondheim (them too!) in a country-western version. Along the way, Jomar will have the chance to encounter some characters who, for one reason or another, lead lives in extreme conditions and solitude and are not doing much better than him, and learn something about life and, as is the best cinematic traditions not exclusively dominantly American (far from it!), about death. Go find the happy ending and the moral by yourselves. I feel I don't yet have enough strength to set off at the moment. Not yet. But I always keep a backpack ready somewhere and I know that one of these days I'll jump on my Vespa - okay, maybe after a proper visit to my mechanic and, why not?, to my trusted junkyard - and I will reach Bilbao, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Gernika-Lumo, San Sebastián. It won't be Rune Denstad Langlo's North, but it's not too little either for someone who, after all, has never even been to the Atlantic.

On the other hand, it's never too late to lay down the axe and accept the ax (an indispensable quote).