Why we needed two movies about Berghain’s iconic bouncer Sven Marquardt at this year’s Berlinale

At first glance, it may seem excessive to have two documentaries in a film festival about a famously strict doorman, but David Dietl’s Berlin Bouncer and Annekatrin Henel’s Beauty & Decay show such opposing takes on Berghain’s Sven Marquardt that you almost have to watch them back-to-back.

Berlin Bouncer, which premiered at the 2019 Berlinale, paints a bittersweet portrait of the German capital’s unrivalled nightlife from the perspective of three of its long-standing gatekeepers. Much of the film concerns the careers of local clubland stalwarts Smiley Baldwin and Frank Künster, but the star of the show is undoubtedly Sven Marquardt: the heavily tattooed face of Berghain, and quite probably the world’s best-known doorman.

In its opening moments, the film paints a less than flattering picture of this quintessential Berlin figure. Marquardt, sharing a car with Dietl, suddenly instructs the filmmaker to leave the vehicle as they approach Berghain, because “we don’t want to be filmed while driving in”. In the next scene, when discussing his notoriously mysterious door policy, he brusquely decrees “the rules that are in place… one doesn’t need to question them”. Anyone who’s ever suffered the indignity of being turned away from the emblematic club with a dismissive head shake will doubtless lap up this vision of Marquardt as a power-crazed individual.

But over the course of the film, Dietl scratches away at Marquardt’s unapproachable facade, and in doing so reveals a somewhat more sensitive, self-aware soul. Offering a glimmer of insight into his process for selecting club guests, he explains “we have a responsibility to make sure those inside can be the way they want to be.” Afterwards, he jokes: “I always imagine that when I depart from this life, I’ll enter an intermediate circle of hell, like in a Hieronymus Bosch painting. I’ll have to repeatedly knock. And they’ll say, “No, Not you!””

It becomes apparent that Marquardt regards himself as a perpetual outsider. Recalling his formative years as part of the 1980s East Berlin punk scene, he admits that his habit of “wearing lots of jewellery to go out… was a bit like wearing armour”. He unquestionably holds Dietl at arm’s length during interviews, but this is more likely borne out of shyness and insecurity than arrogance. He becomes extremely evasive whenever the filmmaker attempts to broach personal subjects, often deflecting attention from himself by making a joke at Dietl’s expense.

Marquardt, who recently turned 57, is also clearly preoccupied with his role as an elder statesman of a subculture synonymous with youthful stamina and excess. As he strolls along a Rostock beach during a slightly bleak-looking holiday, he admits that regular all-nighters now leave him in a state of “emotional exhaustion”. More poignantly, he reveals: “I promised myself at 15 or 16 that at this age I wouldn’t end up hanging around in some dive staring at 18-year-olds’ asses. I thought it was completely tragic, what I saw back then.” He goes on to stress that “it’s a different era today of course”, but the film leaves you with a sense that the Berlin underground’s reigning monarch might be preparing to abdicate his throne.

Meanwhile, Annekatrin Hendel’s Beauty & Decay (Schönheit & Vergänglichkeit), which also premiered at the Berlinale, is more concerned with his work as a photographer. Before Berghain, and before Germany reunified, Marquardt made a name for himself as a punk photographer in East Berlin.

Relieved of the pressure of representing an iconic institution – as is the case in Berlin Bouncer —, Marquardt appears immediately more relaxed and approachable. In the film’s opening scene, he animatedly describes a classic situation he’s been experiencing on public transport for 25 years. If there’s enough room, there’s space all around me. Almost no one will sit next to me… If you set yourself apart by your appearance, then this distance becomes public.” Where Berlin Bouncer paints a picture of a past-his-prime clubber prone to wallowing in loneliness, Beauty & Decay depicts an artist revelling in his otherness and channelling it into his work.

Hendel further cuts to the core of Marquardt by spending time with two of his close friends from Punk-era Prenzlauer Berg, both of whom feature heavily in his early photography: free-spirited Dominique “Dome” Hollenstein, who today makes a living selling handmade leather flowers; and fellow photographer Robert Paris, who now leads a relatively straight-laced existence with his wife in India. In part, the film documents the reteaming of Marquardt and Hollensteinfor a new photoshoot, allowing them to reflect on their wild formative years. This proves a gift to Hendel, as Marquardt is immeasurably more forthcoming when talking to his old confidante than he is fielding questions from Dietl in Berlin Bouncer.

By exploring the diminishing bond between Marquardt and Robert, the film also strikingly juxtaposes the experience of a queer middle-aged Berliner against that of his straight counterpart. Seemingly inseparable kindred spirits as young men, Marquardt has continued to prioritise artistry and sensory pleasure in subsequent decades, while Paris appears to have been a little stifled by heteronormative conventions. While the depiction of Marquardt here sometimes verges on melancholic, Beauty & Decay ultimately reveals him to be creatively fulfilled and compassionate, and thus in no way an imposing figure to be feared or pitied.