Paramount hasn’t been historically known for their baller moves, but when it comes to their bold anti-promotional campaign for Martin Scorsese’s Silence, game must recognize game. Keeping a major awards horse almost entirely on the down-low until one month before its December 23 release is one thing; when that movie also happens to be a passion project decades in the making from what very well might be our greatest living filmmaker — American or otherwise — well, that’s just showing off. A Martin Scorsese movie sells itself, and Paramount has now reminded the moviegoing public of why that is.

After what feels like a small eternity of anticipation, a proper theatrical trailer for Silence has arrived at last, foretelling an epic of natural grandeur and religious fervor from Hollywood’s preeminent Christian cineaste. A pair of Jesuit missionaries (Adam Driver and Andrew Garfield, evidently locked in a fierce competition to see who could grow the scraggliest facial hair) travel to Japan in the seventeenth century with two missions: To spread the good word of the Lord to what was then called the Orient, and to retrieve their wayward mentor (Liam Neeson). Word is that the one-time devout priest has renounced God and turned away from the light, and though the two young missionaries can scarcely believe it, they vow to bring him back into the fold.

As trailers go, this one’s really something to behold. The process of shooting out in Japan has already yielded some eye-popping vistas of natural beauty, as their caravan wends through the dense far Eastern jungles. Set to frantic strings and martial percussion, images of the sacred and the profane uncomfortably coexist — the most powerful image may just be a crucified trio, stuffed into the corner of a wide shot.

Clear some space on your schedule. Scorsese and God want you to go to the movies this Christmas.

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