There is a beautiful contrast between reality, the worldliness of a postman traveling through small villages, and the fantasy surrounding the construction of that palace dedicated to his daughter, who takes on the status of a princess in the eyes of her father. A biopic shot with emotion and affection, with a moving performing of Jacques Gamblin, although the director prefers realistic melancholy to the poetic.

Google 'Ferdinand Cheval' in Wikipedia and you'll have the same story as this film, only shorter and more fascinating. You'd think the story of the **life-sized palace Cheval built from scratch for his infant daughter with his bare hands** (!) would be told with more poetry, but alas, director Nils Tavernier decides to keep the castle very much down to earth and focus the story on what brings the postman down and not what lifts him up.