Bonne Annee takes place during the course of one fateful night in an unnamed Latin American city. It is New Year’s Eve, and two hit men, one American, one French, ponder the night and their lives in this stylish and unconventional thriller. The film begins with the end of the evening’s story, then retraces the events that lead there in a series of beautifully composed, continuous “long take” shots averaging 10 minutes each. This technique, pioneered by Alfred Hitchcock in Rope but almost never used since, is stunningly effective. Bonne Annee is the first film by Alexander Berberich and features an assured and radiant performance from Karen Young, who’s dazzled as a leading lady in a range of great films from the international (Laurent Cantet’s Heading South) to the American independent (Tom Noonan’s The Wife) to the Hollywood (Daybreak, Heat) to upper case TV series (“The Sopranos,” in which she appeared regularly as Agent Robyn Sanseverino).

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