The Silver Spring Penguin

Photo: Plane spotters in "Plane Days" (2008). Courtesy of SilverDocs.

For better or worse, humans are big on manipulating the environment. We construct buildings and plant lawns where none existed before. Flipping the script, these constructed environments manipulate humans to either conform or rebel. The SilverDocs shorties program “City[e]scapes” tries to capture that conflict, with varying degrees of success.

“Plane Days” (2008)

Britons have taken up a new hobby: watching airplanes come and go at London’s Heathrow Airport. The plane spotters (above) flock together in silence, staring into the distance for that first jet to appear. Other spotters chirp unintelligibly, spitting out flight numbers and call signs only they would understand.

Directors Ewan McNicol and Benjamin Kracun use a light touch that allows the plane spotters’ intrinsic quirkiness to shine, while illustrating how modernization has altered the way humans view flight. It’s a cute, funny 15 minutes of film.

The Shutdown (2009)

Photo: From "The Shutdown" (2009). Courtesy of SilverDocs.

This 10-minute flick is a modern-day “Beowulf”, complete with gutteral English and a fire-breathing dragon. The narrator, whose thick Scottish accent makes Sean Connery and Ewan McGregor sound like cupcakes, recalls the day his father is injured while working an oil refinery. That alien language is merged with evening shots of the refinery, a writhing, glowing monster that spews columns of pink smoke into the night.

Director Adam Stafford does a fantastic job merging Alan Bissett’s hypnotic storytelling with his own frightening images. This one’s goooood.

“Chungking Dream” (2008)

Photo: From "Chungking Dream" (2008). Courtesy of SilverDocs.

Hong Kong’s monolithic Chungking tenement is an immigrant conclave packed with market stalls, foreign tongues and alien habits — a Chinatown for the not-so-Chinese. Its inhabitants, most of them African and south Asian men, live below the government’s radar and hustle food, haircuts and bootleg movies for a living.

What’s unclear in this 17-minute flick is how the men got there and why they decide to stay. The images by directors Jean-Louis Schuller and Sam Blair are an interesting glimpse into this human-sized hamster cage, but they don’t explore motives or emotions. It’s an interesting film, but it could have been more.

“The Solitary Life of Cranes” (2008)

Photo: From "The Solitary Life of Cranes" (2008). Courtesy of SilverDocs.

London’s construction crane operators work long, lonely days above the city’s constant frenzy, but their perches give them voyeuristic views through office and apartment windows. With nothing more than news radio to keep them company, the crane operators watch life go on without them.

The problem with this Eva Weber flick is that it doesn’t offer the crane operators’ perspectives. Instead, it dishes what the director predicts will be what the audience wants to see. Zoom lenses peek through windows to offer details a crane operator might not have. Sound effects added in post-production, like footsteps on the sidewalk or a squeaky office chair, make this flick a 27-minute contrievance. Meh.

The “City[e]scapes” short program rolls at the AFI Silver Theatre (8633 Colesville Rd) on Wednesday (that’s today) at 4:00 p.m.