Written and Directed by Faye Jackson
Featuring: Eileen Nicholas, Anne Bird, Dominic Burgess, Lara Belmont
2006, 12 minutes
St. Moritz Productions
www.imdb.com/title/tt0841126
Christine trusts that her doctors know what's best for her. But after several operations to remove recurring lumps in her breast, she's not so sure they know what they're doing. Each surgery leaves her successively weaker and less aware of her own health. Each surgery the doctor promises her that the chances of a lump coming back are slim to none; and yet, the lump always comes back. It isn't until Faye decides to mistrust her doctors that the truth, horrible and sickening, comes out.
This short medical chiller by Faye Jackson is about everything we women hate and fear about our healthcare system. We are taught to trust, unfailingly, what our doctors say, and we generally don't understand the piles of medical paperwork our insurance companies and government systems throw at us.
Lump is also about one of the most feared and hated diseases that attacks women; breast cancer. Its devastating effects have taught us long ago the need to check ourselves (since doctors can often miss the signs) of breast cancer. We live every day knowing that the very things that make us unmistakably "womanly" are also the parts of our body most likely to kill us if we're not careful.
Christine's experience is extremely touching and alarming because of her inability to trust the doctors to do their best to help her. In fact, she becomes a victim of "the system"Â so easily that this film has been categorized in the thriller/horror genre because of how unsettling her experience is.
Offset by some lovely cinematography by Kathinka Minthe, Lump<'s/i> hospital grays and puke-ish yellow tones provide a feeling of sickness and nausea. Christine is beautifully acted as the frightened and upset woman who endures the constant surgeries and uncaring, cold, and clinical nurses who don't answer her questions.
Lump is a truly "different" kind of horror story; one based in reality and translated into an almost "urban legend"Â of a tale, inspired by the greatest fears and most morbid imaginations of women of all ages and in all countries. Brilliantly simple, Lump transcends several genres and is instead a warning to both women and their doctors about the horrors of medical hypocrisy.
