‘Tito, Margot and Me’ Review: The Mystery Around a Ballerina and a Diplomat’s Unlikely Marriage Leaves as Many Questions as It Answers

Mercedes Arias and Delfina Vidal Frago take a romantic view of history in more ways than one in “Tito, Margot and Me,” a curious look at the love story between world-renowned British ballerina Margot Fonteyn and Panamanian politician Roberto “Tito” Arias. Recently selected by the latter country as its official Oscar entry for international feature, the documentary is bound to be better appreciated at home, where well-known historical details need not be explained for locals. Yet the doc holds broader interest in exploring a relationship of great consequence, not only for the individuals involved, but in international affairs.

It isn’t a coincidence that one of the co-directors shares a family name with Arias. Despite being his niece, Mercedes recalls only meeting her uncle Tito once. A subject of mystery within her own family as he was for much of Panama, Tito Arias may have graced tabloids around the world as Fonteyn’s other half, but largely eluded the limelight in his home country. Perhaps that was due to his jetset lifestyle as a diplomat or not wanting his activities well-publicized, as he was alleged to have sought upending the De La Guardia government that displaced his own uncle Arnulfo from the presidency in the late 1950s. Admitting in her introductory narration that she wants to distance herself from her family’s political legacy, Mercedes is only motivated to look back upon receiving a letter from a college friend asking if she was related to Tito, after finding an unguarded photo of Fonteyn and Arias together, behind the scenes of one of her ballets.

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That tentativeness on Mercedes’ part doesn’t entirely seem to go away, as her voiceover all but disappears midway through the film. Beyond her own resistance to putting herself front and center, she and Vidal Frago clearly wrestle with how to tell an intimate story without having direct access to their main subjects who passed away long ago. They get as close as possible when Mercedes probes relatives for all they know about the private couple, which brings forth secondhand recollections of the pair’s first encounter at Cambridge and their quiet life on a farm, after Arias was left paralyzed by an assassination attempt. Yet even when the interviewees appear game to discuss Fonteyn and Arias’ more controversial political activities or potential infidelity, a reticence can be felt on the part of the filmmakers about getting too explicit, maybe out of a fear it could be rehashing what’s already out in the public record or an overabundance of discretion. Regardless, it yields a frustratingly incomplete picture at times.

Still, there’s an admirable effort in “Tito, Margot and Me” to evade any standard, straight-foward biographical treatment, even considering Fonteyn and Arias were known for their charisma. The co-directors adopt a wistful tone that owes more to the grand literary tradition of Gabriel García Márquez than any associated with nonfiction, though fellow Latin American filmmakers such as Maite Alberdi (“The Eternal Memory”) and Adriana Loeff and Claudia Abend (“La Flor De La Vida”) have been steadily creating a niche for such films about longtime partnerships, where the question is never why two people have stayed together when their passion for one another is evident, but how their relationship was able to endure all their lives threw at them. To this enchanting end, the film’s big creative gambit, introducing a pair of dancers to reflect Fonteyn and Arias at various points in their lives, works more than it doesn’t, conveying how the pair moved together through the world in a manner that can’t be articulated in words. 

“Tito, Margot and Me” may come up slightly short in giving a comprehensive view of any of its three titular figures, but it might not be true to their experience not to leave a little bit of mystery to their story. After all, it’s inferred that Fonteyn and Arias were hard-pressed to describe what they meant to each other even. Although Arias and Vidal Frago may lean a little too much into the idea that love can’t be explained, the warm remembrances of the couple and their wilder exploits by family and friends, as if they were trading stories around the dinner table, are likely to inspire a similar feeling of affection that’s hard to put a finger on.