Why is this not working (apply + call-process + list of string args)?

[Arthur Miller]

I just wonder if someone can explain exact what is going on here:

I have a list of strings of arruments I try to pass to configure script. It
looks something like this:

#+begin_src emacs-lisp
(defvar args
'("--with-native-compilation "
     "--with-x "
     "--with-x-toolkit=no "
     "--without-gconf "
     "--without-gsettings "
     "--with-cairo "
     "--without-toolkit-scroll-bars "
     "--with-xinput2 "
     "--without-included-regex "
     "--without-compress-install "))

(defun configure (&rest args)
  (apply #'call-process
  (expand-file-name "./configure")
  nil build-log nil args))

(apply #'configure args)
#end_src

However it does not work, configure script seems to see wrong arguments.

I have snitched solution from call-process-shell-command:

(defun configure (&rest args)
  (call-process  shell-file-name  nil build-log nil shell-command-switch
                 (mapconcat #'identity (cons "./configure" args) " ")))

which works fine, but I don't really understand what is going "behind the
scenes"; why do I need to start an extra shell process? I guess it has something
with how arguments are quoted and passed to call-process, but I am not
sure. Clarification appreciated. Thanks in advance.