If someone asked me to identify a prototypical 'art film,' I could do no better than to point them to Elective Affinities, a low-budget period piece from Italy, featuring circuitous dialogue, a story based on a Goethe novel, and an absolutely awful title.
Elective Affinities tracks a foursome in a Tuscan villa who couple in a variety of formations. There's bad feelings and a baby, but most of all there's a whole lotta talking about emotions -- with a pseudo-scientific explanation of love as a mathematical equation (which, sort of, explains the title).
Ultimately it's on the pedantic side, alas.
Aka Le Affinità elettive.
