Frivolous Lola Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		3.0

Frivolous Lola Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov April 22, 2024

Tinto Brass' "Frivolous Lola" (1998) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Cult Epics. The supplemental features on the release include exclusive new audio commentary by critics Eugenio Ercolani and Nathaniel Thompson; archival program with Tinto Brass; collection of original stills; trailers; and more. In English or Italian, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-Free.

Like the majority of Tinto Brass’ erotic films, Frivolous Lola is a contemporary variation of a classic commedia all’italiana. Place it next to Sedotta e abbandonata, The Seduction of Mimi, and Divorce Italian Style, and you will discover countless similarities in the adventures of their characters and the sense of humor that provides them with a structure. In Frivolous Lola, Brass simply shows more of what Federico Fellini, Alberto Lattuada, and Lina Wertmuller implied through humor and creative photography.

Frivolous Lola is based on an original screenplay that Brass reportedly finished with Barbara Alberti, who worked on the controversial film The Night Porter, and Carla Cipriani. It is not one of Brass’ ambitious big films, but it is not a small film either. It gathers several very talented people who had previously collaborated with Fellini, Luchino Visconti, Nic Roeg, and Brian De Palma. Its lead is not a big female star, but one of Italian cinema’s legendary beauties, Serena Grandi, is given a decent part.

The narrative is broken into multiple episodes, each chronicling an erotic adventure. Young Lola (Anna Ammirati), who is soon to be married to her lover, is of course the main attraction, but there are several short segments where she trades places with her mother (Grandi). All of the erotic adventures take place in a small provincial Italian town where secrets are impossible to keep, so with the sexual fireworks come a great deal of awkward, often quite hilarious moments. In this film, the hilarious moments are the best material that makes it easy to compare Brass to Fellini, Lattuada, and Wertmuller.

While wonderfully shot, the erotic content is not as imaginative as that seen in Brass’ big films, which is one of the two crucial weaknesses of Frivolous Lola. It is repetitive and, in a few areas, clearly out of sync with the comedy. The costumes and set decorations, which usually give Brass’ films a memorable elegant appearance, are somewhat underwhelming as well. (The one notable exception is the footage from the modeling studio of the French lady, which has some of that high-quality, very sexy, unmistakably Brass-flavored glamour).

The second crucial weakness of Frivolous Lola is Ammirati’s performance. Brass’ best erotic films all have a stunningly beautiful female lead whose presence before the camera is electrifying, regardless of whether the clothes are on or off. Ammirati is frequently very beautiful, but she does not light up the screen. As she moves from one adventure to another, it often looks like she is auditioning for a commercial that a big company plans to launch soon. As a result, some pretty big areas of Frivolous Lola have an undeniable artificial quality.

Perhaps ironically, or not at all considering her impressive oeuvre of erotic films, Grandi saves Frivolous Lola. She looks spectacular and gives a nuanced performance that legitimizes much of the blending of comedy, drama, and erotica that occurs after her daughter decides to put her marriage on hold and begins experimenting with the men who marvel at her beauty.

As if to ensure that no one misses the obvious relationship between Frivolous Lola and the classic commedia all’italiana films, Brass commissioned a soundtrack that is a minor masterpiece. It features top tracks by Carla Boni (“Mambo Italiano”) Mina (“Nessuno”, “Folle Banderuola”), Gene Vincent (“Be Bop a Lula”), and Curtis King Jr. (“Let’s Twist Again”).

Frivolous Lola can be seen with original English and Italian audio tracks. Both feature original overdubbing. Outside of Italy, the English track has always been considered the original track for the film.

Cult Epics’ new release features a tiny amount of footage that has not been seen on previous presentations of the English language version of Frivolous Lola.

Frivolous Lola Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Frivolous Lola arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Cult Epics.

The release introduced an exclusive new 4K restoration of Frivolous Lola, which is also made available on 4K Blu-ray. You can see our listing and review of this 4K Blu-ray release here.

I viewed the 4K makeover in native 4K and then spent some time with the 1080p presentation. Excluding some areas where the native 4K presentation produces visuals that very clearly have a superior dynamic range, I think that the overall quality of the native 4K and 1080p presentations is very similar. Why? Well, there are some issues with the color grading of the 4K makeover that produces identical fluctuations in terms of color balance and gamma. The observations below are from our review of the 4K Blu-ray release, which also address the 1080 presentation.

I found the 4K makeover quite frustrating. It is the healthiest, most attractive presentation of Frivolous Lola that I have seen to date, but quite a few things on it could and should have been done better. Virtually all of the issues I noticed have something to do with the color grade, which effectively replaces nearly all ranges of primary blue and blue nuances with variations of turquoise. A lot of the changes are either extremely similar or similar to the ones that can be observed on the recent 4K makeovers of Snapshot and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. However, because of the unique use of natural light and shadows, here these changes also introduce noticeable fluctuations in the gamma levels of the visuals. As a result, clarity and depth can fluctuate quite a bit. There are no traces of problematic degraining corrections. Image stability is excellent. The framing of the visuals is very good, too. Ultimately, while some parts of the film look mostly decent, elsewhere, and especially where blue has to be very prominent -- like the sexy footage with Serena Grandi or the famous rain footage -- there are obvious issues with color temperature and balance.

The difference between the native 4K presentation and the 1080p presentation is insignificant. The HDR grade is very gentle and does not produce any sizeable shifts in the overall dynamic range of the visuals. I prefer how several darker sequences look in native 4K. However, in native 4K and 1080p the gamma fluctuations I mentioned earlier are very easy to recognize.

Frivolous Lola Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are four standard audio tracks on this release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0, English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, Italian DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0, and Italian DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. Optional English subtitles are provided.

The comments below are from our review of the 4K Blu-ray release of Frivolous Lola

Both tracks feature original overdubbing. Outside of Italy, the English track has always been considered the original track for Frivolous Lola. It is one I used to view the film. I thought that it was excellent -- very healthy, stable, and with a decent dynamic range. However, you should be prepared to notice quite a bit of unevenness, which is entirely inherited. I did not encounter any encoding anomalies to report in our review.

Frivolous Lola Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary - this exclusive new audio commentary was recorded by critics Eugenio Ercolani and Nathaniel Thompson. The commentators share a lot of information about the production of Frivolous Lola and Tinto Brass' career, the casting choices that were made, the tone and visual style of the film, erotic cinema, etc.

• Trailers - presented here are trailers for:
  
  1. Frivolous Lola
  2. All Ladies Do It

• Interview with Tinto Brass (2004) - in this archival program, Tinto Brass reveals how Frivolous Lola came to exist and addresses various other subjects, such as distribution rights and promotion of erotic films, sexuality and passion in his work, feminism in cinema and other arts, etc.

• Photo Gallery - a collection of original stills for Frivolous Lola. Many of these stills reveal the original, proper color palette of the film.

• Cover - a reversible cover with original Italian poster art for Frivolous Lola.

• Cards - four collectibel cards for Frivolous Lola.

• Booklet - 20-page illustrated booklet with liner notes by Eugenio Ercolani and Domenico Monetti.

Frivolous Lola Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Cult Epics has promoted Tinto Brass' films with genuine passion for years. Frankly, without its efforts, many of them would not have been available to see in North America. Now, the label is trying hard to give some of these films the best possible presentation on 4K Blu-ray and Blu-ray. Frivolous Lola, one of Brass' smaller films, has been fully restored in 4K, but I do not think that the makeover is as convincing as it could have been. Nevertheless, I suspect that this 4K Blu-ray/Blu-ray combo pack and the Blu-ray release we have reviewed here will offer the final presentation of Frivolous Lola on the home video market, so if you want the film in your collection, pick one of these releases.