How do great ideas and great stories begin? With an accidental conversation on the train? Or from acquaintance with great writers, with a generous hand scattering seeds of creative ideas into the fertile soil of talented directors? Or maybe from a wonderful fairy tale seen from the movie screen in early childhood? ..
Childhood
Not much is known about the biography of Pavel Arsenov.
He was born on one of the sunny days of the warm Tbilisi winter - January 05, 1936, in the family of a simple artisan-Armenian Oganez Arsenov. The adult life of the future famous director began early - in the hungry and ruthless doorways of front-line Tbilisi, where he, tall and broad-shouldered for seven years, was fighting with boys who were almost twice his age. Having lost the next battle, he did not give up and climbed into battle again.
Thus temperament was tempered and the personality of Paul was brought up. However, everything around grew dim and lost significance when the screen of the nearest cinema was lit up with the light of a beautiful and kind children's fairy tale "Vasilisa the Beautiful", which appeared just during the war. Holding his breath and rounding with delight, Pavel Arsenov turned into a little boy again, returning to the world of childhood that had been lost. He went to this tale about twenty times, no less. And every time everyone was still worried whether Ivan and the enchanted Vasilisa would cope with the trials that fell to their lot.
As Pavel Oganezovich later recalled, if it were not for this wonderful fairy tale that happened to him in childhood, and, in fact, gave him childhood himself, everything would have turned out completely different in his life.
Youth
Tall, stately, athletically built and masterful in his father, Pavel, in fact, could easily earn his living. By the time he graduated from one of the Tbilisi schools, he already fairly well owned scissors and a comb and could work, for example, as a hairdresser. He loved to skillfully carve amusing figures from wood and could sell them in the local market. In the end, having an extraordinary and spectacular appearance, he could just take and marry the daughter of some prosperous Georgian.
However, young Pavel Oganezovich Arsenov, having decided to go the way of knowledge, enters the Tbilisi Institute of Geology named after Janelidze. However, he was not destined to become a geologist, since during his studies at the institute he, in memory of those happy childhood memories and experiencing an irresistible desire to somehow touch on the great art, got a job at the Georgia-Film studio. This event served as a starting point for his entire future life, inextricably linked with the world of cinema.
Carier start
Soon Pavel Arsenov moved to Moscow and entered the directing department of the All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography, where Grigory Roshal himself was his teacher. During the training, he earned his bread and gained experience in the studio of popular science films. Then, in 1960, Paul made his film debut, playing the courageous and honest stoker Hakob in the drama "Voices of Our Quarter".
In 1963, after graduating from the Institute of Cinematography, he began independent film directing, removing the short film short films “Sunflower” and “Lelka”. There, during the filming of "Sunflower", Pavel met his first wife, the growing actress Valentina Malyavina.
First marriage
The fatal beauty actress Valentina Malyavina played a destructive role in the personal life of Pavel Arsenov.
Muscovite Valya got into the cinema by chance, since school she fell in love, as usual with beauties, with a local bully and heartthrob who enchanted the entire female half of Arbat. This lucky one was the future People's Artist of the RSFSR, Alexander Zbruev, who quickly responded with reciprocity to eighteen-year-old Malyavina.
At first, the young couple hid their relationship, and only after a secret wedding was opened to parents. However, their marriage was not destined to last long - after four years, Valentina leaves for Arsenov.
They met on the set and very soon became friends. Malyavina did not hide their relationship from Zbruyev, and very soon a divorce followed her first husband, immediately after which Pavel and Valentina had a wedding.
Pavel Oganezovich treated his wife very touching. Surrounding her with care and attention, he built their cozy family nest. After some time, a couple was born to a girl. However, the parental happiness of the newlyweds was very short-lived - after a few children, the baby died from infection.
From this moment on, their family life became disordered.
The spectacular brunette Malyavina still enjoyed unchanged success in men. Soon she made an affair with the already-popular actor Alexander Kaydanovsky. Despite the fact that Malyavina was still married, and Kaydanovsky was married, their relationship boiled a truly crazy passion. They staged scenes of public jealousy and cut each other's veins in order to die on the same day, as it should be. Mired in some kind of half-drunken stupor, Malyavina even lived for some time at the same time as Arsenov and Kaydanovsky, in 1969 having parted with both.
And when she left, sadness settled forever in the heart of Pavel Arsenov.
Elena
The second time the director was able to get married only seven years later.
The young girl Elena married Arsenov in 1976. She was only twenty, and she was two times younger than her chosen one.
However, this did not hinder her from living with Pavel Oganezovich twenty-three years, until his death, devoting his life to his beloved husband and helping him in his work.
In 1980, the couple had a daughter, Elizabeth, who later became a theatrical make-up artist-stylist.
"Guest from the future"
On March 25, 1985, director Pavel Arsenov made a gift to millions of Soviet schoolchildren, making, perhaps, the most important film of his life - which became the cult "Guest from the Future", which was based on the book of the science fiction writer Cyrus Bulychev "A Hundred Years Ago Ahead."
Teenagers across the country fell in love with the characters of the film. Such popularity has not yet won any of the domestic films for children.
Few of the audience did not cry tears on the song "Beautiful far away" in the final credits. And even now, many of yesterday's schoolchildren, who had already managed to acquire grandchildren, as soon as this wonderful song begins to sound, every time they return back to childhood, when their path, full of tormenting suspense, was just beginning.
The soul of each of them is filled with an amazing feeling, akin to the action of a time machine from a favorite movie, and they, even for a short while, become children again, as the little boy Pavel Arsenov once thawed after fights when watching "Vasilisa the Beautiful".
Inspired by the extraordinary success of “Guests from the Future,” Pavel Oganezovich already in 1987 presented the audience with the picture “Purple Ball”, a continuation of the story of Alice Selezneva, the main character of the cult television movie.
However, this tape could not repeat its former success and failed at the box office.
90s
The filmography of the director has only twelve films. Almost half of them were significant for that time and remained in the memory of the audience. This, in addition to the famous "Guests from the Future", such tapes as "The Deer King", "And then I said no ...", "Do not part with your loved ones."
In the mid-90s of the last century, the sunset of the once authoritative Gorky film studio began, where Pavel Oganezovich worked. First, the studio stopped making children's films, and then completely stopped its activities.
Last film
Pavel Arsenov made his last film, “The Wizard of the Emerald City,” shortly before his death. During filming, a heart attack catches up with him, after which the director ends up in the hospital for a long time. Upon returning home, Pavel, with the help of his wife Elena, gradually returned to life and was able to continue working on the film, which was released in 1994.
After that, the director no longer shot. He died on August 12, 1999. The reason for the death of Pavel Arsenov was his heart, which had already let him down before.