The etymological origins of concealment suggest, from conceler , hiding, dissimulating, secrecy (celare : to hide), while those of a related, but radically different word, revelation , suggest the disclosure of facts or information. The relation between un‐concealment (as a coming out of hiding, an un‐secreting of something) as opposed to revelare’s disclosure would seem to be a difference, in part, between emergences marked by their opposite (un‐concealment functioning, then, as a double negative) and a pure production of disclosure or information – one, let it be said, with a markedly theological bent. We know, since Heidegger, that unconcealment involves its own concealments; but does revelation imply likewise unrevelatory forms? Just as Heidegger writes about unconcealment in Plato’s allegory in Republic, that it is “a theme, and at the same time not a theme” – my argument is that, in Chinese Roulette, the difference between unconcealment and revelation is a theme, and at the same time not a theme. It is also the film’s form, and one that resists thematization even as it suggests itself as the theme of the work. This strange and non‐forthcoming work.

P. 143

¶ 9:51 PM