Perhaps a past is at its most haunting when you can only catch glimmers of it. Memories are weighty things; does a memory hold even more formidable power when it is a phantom?

La Vie Promise, a 2002 French film, chronicles the journey of a troubled woman who returns to a past she has all but erased from memory. Fortunately, director-writer Olivier Dahan avoids the melodramatic reveal; there are no a-ha! epiphanies that explain why coldhearted Sylvia (Isabelle Huppert) ditched a loving husband and a baby for life as a prostitute in Nice. There are tantalizing clues here and there, but ultimately we get no fuller picture than the vague hints accorded to our difficult, enigmatic protagonist.

Sylvia's life is thrown into upheaval when her 14-year-old daughter, Laurence (Maud Forget), shows up, having run away from foster care. Sylvia is dismissive, even belligerent to the girl, but soon enough mother and daughter are thrust together when Laurence accidentally (kinda) stabs mom's abusive pimp. The pair flees Nice and seeks help from a reformed prostitute (Fabienne Babe) who is an old friend of Sylvia's. The friend reveals that Sylvia's ex-husband, Piotr (André Marcon), has sent letters over the years in hopes that they would find their way to Sylvia.

With the letters in hand, Sylvia reluctantly sets out to find her past. Along the way, she and Laurence meet up with Joshua (Pascal Greggory), a mysterious ex-con who finds himself the women's protector.

While the script by Dahan and Agnès Fustier-Dahan manages to keep things reasonably focused, La Vie Promise still succumbs to a number of artsy pretensions. Laurence periodically suffers epileptic seizures that play out more like anxiety attacks. Flashbacks are shot with handheld video. And flowers, which Sylvia loved tending to when she was a child in her grandmother's garden, become a rather clunky visual motif.

And yet the motion picture, with its elegant pacing and stretches of quiet, achieves a genuine emotional payoff. "I feel like I'm moving through someone else's life," Sylvia says as she gets closer and closer to a past she does not know. You don't have to be an amnesiac to empathize with the sentiment. Most impressive, Sylvia's road to self-discovery leads to a climax that registers in spite of the tremendous expectations that Dahan has placed upon it.

Huppert again demonstrates why she is one of the world's great actresses. In a low-key movie that depends largely on inference and expressiveness, she conveys a multitude of traits -- toughness, loneliness, vulnerability, anguish -- without dismantling her hardened exterior.

While La Vie Promise enjoys first-rate production values, particularly the evocative cinematography of Alex Lamarque, it is Huppert's performance that gives the movie its heart and soul.

Captured in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio and in anamorphic widescreen, the DVD boasts excellent picture quality. Details are sharp and colors are vivid; the disc is devoid of noticeable defects such as edge enhancement, shimmering or artifacts. All in all, this is a terrific print transfer.

The sound is sharp, clean and surprisingly full for Dolby Digital 2.0. The sole audio track is in French, with English the only option for subtitles.

Empire Pictures gives La Vie Promise the minimalist treatment. The only items resembling extras include a theatrical trailer as well as previews for September 11th and The Twilight Samurai.

For all intents and purposes, La Vie Promise is an art-house road-trip flick. While it isn't quite as provocative as Olivier Dahan's direction might suggest, the movie nevertheless features a typically stunning performance by Isabelle Huppert. It's just a shame that the DVD is so barebones.