Mercedes Arias and Delfina Vidal Frago take a romantic view of history in more ways than one in “Tito, Margot and Me,” a whimsical look at the love story between world-famous British ballet dancer Margot Fonteyn and Panamanian politician Roberto “Tito” Arias. The documentary was recently selected by the latter country as its official entry for the Academy Award for Best International Feature, and is bound to be better appreciated at home, where historical details known to locals don’t have to be explained. However, the document carries a broader interest in exploring a relationship that has significant consequences, not only for the individuals involved, but also in international affairs.
It’s no coincidence that one of the co-directors shares a last name with Arias. Despite being his niece, Mercedes remembers having only met his uncle Tito once. A mysterious subject within her family as he was throughout much of Panama, Tito Arias may have appeared in tabloids around the world as Fontaine’s other half, but he largely dropped out of the limelight in his homeland. Perhaps due to his lifestyle as a diplomat or his unwillingness to publicize his activities, he allegedly sought to overthrow the de la Guardia government that had removed his uncle Arnulfo from the presidency in the late 1950s. Admitting in her introductory narration that she wanted to distance herself from her family’s political legacy, Mercedes had no choice but to look back when she received a letter from a university friend asking if she was related to Tito, after finding an unprotected photo of Fontaine and Arias together. Behind the scenes of one of her ballet performances.
This hesitation on Mercedes’ part doesn’t seem to have completely disappeared, as her voiceover disappears halfway through the film. Far from resisting putting herself front and center, it’s clear that she and Vidal Frago are grappling with how to tell an intimate story without direct access to their long-dead main subjects. They get as close as possible when Mercedes investigates their relatives to find out everything they know about the private couple, which brings up vicarious memories of the couple’s first meeting in Cambridge and their quiet life on the farm, after Arias is paralyzed by an assassination attempt. However, even when interviewees appear to be discussing Fontaine and Arias’s more controversial political activities or possible infidelity, reticence on the part of the filmmakers about being too frank can be sensed, perhaps out of fear of rehashing what has already been revealed. Public record or over-estimation. Regardless, it produces a frustratingly incomplete picture at times.
However, there is a remarkable effort in “Tito, Margot and Me” to evade any standard, straightforward biographical treatment, even considering that Fontaine and Arias were known for their charisma. The co-directors adopt a melancholy tone that owes more to the grand literary tradition of Gabriel García Márquez than to anything associated with nonfiction, though fellow Latin American filmmakers such as Maite Alberde (“Eternal Memory”), Adriana Love and Claudia Abend (“La Flor De “La Vida” consistently creates a niche for such films about long-term partnerships, where the question is never why two people stay together when their passion for each other is so palpable, but how their relationship has managed to endure throughout their lives. To achieve this enchanting ending, the film’s great creative gambit, which introduces a pair of dancers to mirror Fontaine and Arias at different stages of their lives, succeeds more than anything else, conveying how the duo moved together through the world in a way that can’t be expressed in words.
“Tito, Margot and Me” may fall a little short on providing a comprehensive overview of any of its three distinct characters, but it might not be true to their experience not to leave a little mystery in their story. After all, it is inferred that Fontaine and Arias were hard-pressed to even describe what they meant to each other. Although Arias and Vidal Frago may lean too much into the idea that love is inexplicable, warm memories of the couple and their wild exploits are likely shared by family and friends, as if they were swapping stories around the dinner table. To inspire a similar feeling of affection is hard to put your finger on.