The oft-borrowed title is here a pun, since this full-length documentary looks behind-the-scenes during the stormy election period of March, 1968, as Antonin Novotny resigned as President and other politicians jockeyed to keep themselves, and the Prague Spring they had engineered, in place. Cinematography by Jozef Ort-Snep is intimate, intrusive, ironic; there's not a "talking head" in the picture. Rather, images of nervous hands and half-shut eyes, of bottles in a meeting hall, and bottoms firmly planted in their chairs, immovable, accompany the conversations. The talk is fascinating, an exposé of process and passion, optimism and its opposite, the shadow of doubt. Among the politicians in the film are Novotny, Alexander Dubcek, Oldrich Cernik, Eduard Goldstucker, Ota Sik, Josef Smerkovski, Gustav Husak, and General Ludvik Svoboda, whose election as President marks the end of the film and so much more. Elective Affinities helps set a political context for our current series, but the inverse is true, as well, as Liehm and Liehm write: "Czechoslovak film played a significant role in laying the cultural and social groundwork for what was to become known as the 'Prague Spring of 1968.'"