Marriages are strange creatures. They can die suddenly, when from the outside everything seems fine, or they can linger on for years when it's obvious to everyone, including the two principals, that it's all over.

Hitoshi Yazaki plumbs the mysteries of one such inexplicable (to outsiders) marriage in his aptly titled new film "Sweet Little Lies." Based on Kaori Ekuni's 2004 novel of the same name, it is quite different in style and tone from "Strawberry Shortcakes," Yazaki's quirky, insightful 2006 drama about four women looking for love in all the wrong places — and finding common ground at the end.

The pace of this new film is slower, the look is more austere, even chilly, and the emotions are more tamped down, though bubbling away underneath the frozen smiles and averted glances. If "Strawberry Shortcakes" was a series of colorful, revealing Polaroid snaps, "Sweet Little Lies" is a formal portrait, tinged in terminal gray. But Yazaki is still Yazaki, fascinated by the theme of love and death, such as in the way love can make death easier to bear or embrace; as in two lovers walking hand in hand into the sea — and eternity.