Director Amir Naderi has been passionately experimenting with cinema for a long time, contributing to the artform. Often surprising us with the bold visions of his previous films, he captured the perfect moment of love in Magic Lantern. An old cinema in LA screens its last analogue film before renovating into a multiplex. Mitch, a projectionist, encounters a woman in the film whom he has been searching for a long time. After their brief encounter, she drops her phone and disappears. At long last, he gets a phone call, but their appointment is broken. So far, it seems like a typical time delay in the romance. However, her identity gets more and more puzzling as he tries to find her using the clues left on the phone. In spite of beautiful mise-en-scene with actors young and old, as well as charming props, the atmosphere reflects nostalgia, which may indicate an insight about the relationship between the desire to capture the moment on screen and the inability for the audience to interact with it. (Park Sungho)