But it remains a cinematic milestone: culturally significant, politically vital and visually stunning. Open Your Eyes! (2008, 22 mins): Pasolini and his actors at work on the set ofSalò. Based on a novel by the Marquis de Sade and taking as its setting the miniature fascist republic which Mussolini established in 1944 in Italy this is a film about power, corruption, and the degradation of the human body.